Crimes 

4gainst  Mexico 


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Crimes 
Against  Mexico 

BY 
WILLIAM  LEMKE,  B.A.,  LL.B. 

FARGO,  N.  D. 


Published  by 

GREAT  WEST  PRINTING  CO. 

Minneapolis 


Copyright,  1915, 

BY 

WILLIAM  LEMKE 


CONTENTS 

Page 

President  Wilson  and  Mexico 5 

Letter  of  Ambassador  Wilson 19 

Pancho  Villa 24 

Zapata 32 

The  President's  Mexican  Policy ZZ 

The  President's  Ally 37 

Bryan — Promoter 44 

Bryan's  Foreign  Policy 49 

Villa's  Tactical  Blunder 50 

The  Mexican  People 52 

The  Citizens  of  El  Paso  Protest 58 

The  Speech  of  Congressman  Ainey 63 

American  Refugees 71 

Cowardly  Desertion  of  American  Citizens  77 

A  Nation's  Duty 85 

We  Appeal  to  the  President 89 

The  President's  Indianapolis  Speech 100 

Affairs  in  Mexico 106 

Oil  Again 116 

John  Lind 120 

Government  by  Headline 129 

Lind  for  Bloodshed  and  Subterfuge 134 

Hopkins-Pierce  Letters 137 

President  Huerta 144 

Diaz's  Resignation 148 

Address  Before  Mexican  Congress 150 

William  Jennings  Bryan 152 


\sf^>l 


)  T-Ha^C^UHHi^H 


PRESIDENT  WILSON  AND  MEXICO. 

William  Lemke 

When  Woodrow  Wilson  came  into  office, 
the  most  important  question  confronting  his 
administration  was  the  Mexican  situation,  be- 
cause human  life  and  morality  were  involved. 
The  Indians  of  Mexico,  instigated  and  financed 
by  competing  oil  companies,  and  a  few  ambi- 
tious leaders,  had  gone  on  the  war  path  and 
wrought  ruin  and  desolation.  Three  hundred 
and  seven  Chinamen  had  been  massacred  in  the 
streets  of  Torreon.  President  Diaz,  the  build- 
er of  the  nation,  had  incurred  the  displeasure 
of  the  American  oil  interests  and  had  been 
compelled  to  resign  by  Madero,  who  was  the 
servile  tool  of  the  Waters-Pierce  Oil  Company. 
The  tragic  ten  days  had  occurred  during  which 
human  blood  flowed  freer  than  water  in  the 
streets  of  Mexico  City.  And  the  then  insane 
Madero,  having  failed  to  run  the  government 
by  spiritualism  and  to  cover  up  the  raids  of 
his  friends  and  relatives  upon  the  public  treas- 
ury, had  been  arrested  by  request  of  a  majority 
of  his  own  Congress  and  cabinet  officers,  and 
later  met  the  same  fate  that  he  himself  had 
meted  out  to  at  least  ten  thousand  non-com- 


6  CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

batants,  including  women  and  children.  Amer- 
ican citizens  and  other  foreigners  had  been  and 
were  subjected  to  every  torture  known  in  me- 
dieval times. 

This  was  the  situation  when  Wilson  became 
President.  It  did  not  take  him  by  surprise.  He 
came  into  office  after  Mexico  had  been  upset 
for  over  two  years.  He  had  the  advantage  of 
the  information  that  had  been  gathered,  and 
of  all  the  experience  of  the  previous  adminis- 
tration. How  has  he  met  the  problem?  For 
more  than  six  months  he  insulted  our  intelli- 
gence by  his  silence — and  when  he  was  at  last 
compelled  to  break  his  silence  by  the  foreign 
powers,  he  calmly  requested  the  American  citi- 
zens in  Mexico  to  run.  Thus  he  informed  the 
bandits  of  that  country  that  our  government 
had  forsaken  its  citizens  in  their  hour  of  need, 
and  that  it  would  give  them  no  protection — 
hundreds  sought  safety  by  proclaiming  them- 
selves citizens  of  other  countries.  To  the  honor 
of  all  the  other  nations  may  it  be  said  that  none 
of  them  followed  this  dishonorable  and  cow- 
ardly example. 

The  President's  policy  toward  Mexico  has 
not  only  been  wrong,  but  criminally  wrong,  in 
the  sense  that  it  has  been  responsible  for  the 
destruction  of  thousands  of  lives  and  the  out- 
raging of  thousands  of  women.  When  Wilson 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO  7 

became  President  he  found  a  government  in 
Mexico  which  was  doing  its  utmost  to  restore 
order  and  protect  the  lives  and  property  of  all, 
and  opposed  to  it  he  found  the  forces  of  an- 
archy and  crime.  This  government  had  been 
declared  the  constitutional  government  of 
Mexico  by  its  own  Congress  and  Supreme 
Court.  All  of  the  great  nations,  among  them 
Great  Britain,  Germany,  France,  Austria,  Bel- 
gium, Denmark,  Spain,  Holland,  Italy,  Portu- 
gal, Russia,  China  and  Japan,  had  recognized 
this  government.  President  Wilson  was  ad- 
vised by  our  Ambassador  and  Consuls  to  ex- 
tend recognition,  and  could  have  had  similar 
advice  from  all  of  the  foreign  Ministers  and 
Consuls  in  Mexico.  He  was  assured  that  if  rec- 
ognition were  given,  the  bloodshed  in  that  un- 
happy country  would  speedily  come  to  an  end. 
The  danger  of  withholding  recognition  was 
made  plain  to  him — all  the  fearful  conse- 
quences that  followed  were  pointed  out  to  him. 
One  can  hardly  believe  it  possible  that  an 
honest  man  could  have  blundered  here,  and  yet, 
in  place  of  giving  recognition,  he  defied  the 
laws  of  nations  and  actually  took  the  side  of 
anarchy  and  crime  against  the  very  govern- 
ment that  was  endeavoring  to  uphold  law  and 
order. 


8  CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

"Huerta  must  go/'  These  were  the  words 
of  President  Wilson.  No  more  cruel  or  inhu- 
man words  ever  fell  from  mortal  lips — the  head 
of  a  nation  must  go,  and  fifteen  million  people 
be  turned  over  to  anarchy,  murder  and  shame. 
This  fearful  decree  was  imposed  upon  the  in- 
habitants of  Mexico  for  the  simple  reason  that 
their  country  was  rich  in  oil — crude  petroleum, 
and  because  the  head  of  that  nation  had  refused 
an  offer  from  the  American  oil  kings  of  a  loan 
of  two  hundred  million  dollars  and  the  assur- 
ance of  recognition  from  the  Wilson  adminis- 
tration in  return  for  certain  oil  concessions. 
Huerta  had  the  courage  to  ask,  "What  author- 
ity have  you  to  represent  the  United  States  of 
America  in  Mexico?"  "Huerta  must  go."  This 
perhaps  was  the  oil  kings'  reply  through  Presi- 
dent Wilson. 

For  over  two  years  the  President  has  sup- 
pressed the  truth  in  regard  to  the  real  situa- 
tion. He  has  even  refused  to  submit  to  the 
United  States  Senate  the  information  which 
the  State  Department  has  in  regard  to  the 
crimes  that  have  been  committed  by  Villa  and 
other  murderous  criminals,  although  the  Sen- 
ate made  a  just  and  formal  demand  for  this  in- 
formation. Our  Constitution  gives  to  Congress 
alone  the  right  to  declare  war,  and  yet  the 
President  refused  to  submit  to  them  the  facts 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO  9 

upon  which  they  could  base  an  intelligent  de- 
cision. When  he  said,  "It  was  not  compatible 
with  public  interest,"  he  stood  convicted  of  a 
subterfuge.  He  stood  convicted  of  violating 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  which 
he  took  solemn  oath  to  uphold.  "Not  compati- 
ble with  public  interest" — no,  not  compatible 
with  President  Wilson's  political  interests.  He 
did  not  wish  the  American  people  to  see  his 
friend  and  ally,  Villa,  in  his  true  colors,  with 
the  blood  of  Benton,  Bach  and  hundreds  of 
others  dripping  from  his  fingers.  He  did  not 
wish  the  American  people  to  see  his  friend  and 
ally  with  millions  of  dollars'  worth  of  stolen 
cattle  and  stolen  cotton,  brought  into  and  dis- 
posed of  in  this  country  without  a  protest  from 
him,  although  he  had  full  knowledge  that  these 
cattle  and  this  cotton  had  been  stolen. 

And  all  this  by  the  man  who  has  been 
preaching  to  us  that  the  best  way  to  settle  ail 
public  questions  was  to  throw  open  the  blinds 
*and  let  in  the  light  of  publicity;  and  who 
threatened  to  point  out,  and  justly  so,  with  the 
finger  of  publicity,  any  millionaire  who  would 
even  dare  to  suggest  a  panic,  and  thus  annihi- 
late him  forever  with  public  opinion. 

The  President  discredited  Ambassador  Wil- 
son for  doing  his  duty  and  telling  the  truth,  the 
same  as  he  reprimanded  United  States  District 


10        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

Attorney  McNab  for  telling  the  truth  in  the 
California  White  Slave  cases.  He  even  caused 
the  House  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  to 
withdraw  its  invitation  to  Ambassador  Wilson 
to  appear  before  it  and  give  them  information 
— he  did  not  wish  them  to  know  the  truth.  Had 
he  not,  by  innuendoes,  slurs  and  half  truths,  led 
the  public  to  believe  that  Huerta  murdered 
Madero,  when  he  was  advised,  and  must  have 
known,  that  it  was  not  true?  He  did  not  care 
for  the  facts,  but  insisted  upon  having  them 
made  so  as  to  suit  his  own  political  purpose. 
When  he  reprimanded  Ambassador  Wilson  for 
telling  the  truth,  he  degraded  and  closed  the 
lips  of  every  American  diplomat.  They  re- 
alized that  what  the  President  wanted  was  me- 
dieval diplomacy  —  diplomatic  lies,  and  as 
many  could  not  afford  to  lose  their  positions, 
they  remained  silent. 

The  President  surrounded  himself  with  a 
group  of  confidential  agents  —  diplomatic 
sleuths,  that  would  have  brought  shame  and 
dishonor  to  any  nation.  It  was  the  first  time 
in  the  history  of  our  national  existence  that 
we  sent  scores  of  spies  to  pry  into  the  affairs  of 
a  friendly  nation,  and  had  the  audacity,  or  ig- 
norance, to  openly  and  publicly  designate  them 
as  such.  Rumor  has  it  that  two  American  Con- 
suls, finding  that  Villa  was  willing  to  part  with 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO         11 

some  of  his  stolen  goods,  gave  the  President 
the  information  he  wished,  and  thereupon  be- 
came the  confidential  agents  of  this  govern- 
ment, and  for  all  practical  purposes  members 
of  Villa's  staff,  a  sort  of  international  body- 
guard for  this  monster. 

The  President  and  his  Secretary  of  State  not 
only  refused  to  receive  Major  Gillette,  the  Rev. 
Butler  and  hundreds  of  other  Americans  who 
had  lived  in  Mexico  and  knew  conditions  there, 
but  actually  insulted  them.  The  shameful  man- 
ner in  which  Americans,  who,  bleeding  and  in 
agony,  appealed  for  help,  have  been  treated  be- 
cause they  did  not  use  language  pleasing  to 
the  artistic  ear  of  William  Jennings  Bryan,  is  a 
matter  of  Congressional  Record. 

When  Villa  and  his  followers  were  hard 
pressed  and  had  to  take  to  the  mountains,  the 
President  came  to  their  assistance  by  dispatch- 
ing another  confidential  agent,  John  Lind,  "A 
deserving  Democrat  looking  for  a  job,"  to 
Mexico  with  those  impossible  proposals  that 
threw  the  nations  of  the  world  into  convul- 
sions of  laughter.  The  President  demanded 
that  he  be  permitted  to  name  the  President  of 
a  sovereign  nation — and  that  against  the  will 
of  its  own  people.  And  when  the  world  stood 
amazed  at  the  audacity  of  this  demand,  he 
quietly  assured  the  American  people  that  he 


12         CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

had  the  approval  of  the  European  nations. 
This  was  not  true.  All  that  the  European  pow- 
ers did  in  the  matter  was  to  ask  the  Mexican 
government  to  give  Mr.  Lind  an  audience. 
They  never  dreamed  that  he  was  on  such  a 
silly  mission.  They  smiled  audibly  when  they 
learned  the  nature  of  these  proposals,  and  the 
British  Minister,  Sir  Lionel  Carden,  made 
some  unkind  remarks,  which  did  not  meet  with 
the  President's  approval.  It  was  then  that  the 
President  began  to  talk  about  not  sacrificing 
morality  for  expediency — forgetting  that  civi- 
lization would  answer  back  that  to  assist  mur- 
der, rape  and  robbery  was  neither  morality 
nor  expediency.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  these 
proposals  were  made  in  good  faith.  They  were 
made  to  harass  and  cripple  the  Mexican  gov- 
ernment at  the  very  moment  that  its  labors 
were  about  to  be  crowned  with  success. 

The  American  flag  had  been  insulted  at 
Tampico — no,  the  American  flag  had  not  been 
insulted.  The  President  had  learned  from  his 
confidential  agent,  Mr.  Lind,  that  large  ship- 
ments of  arms  and  ammunition  were  about  to 
land  for  the  Mexican  Government.  He  feared 
for  the  safety  of  Villa  and  his  followers,  and 
gave  to  Admiral  Fletcher  the  order:  "Seize 
the  Custom  House  at  Vera  Cruz.''  Twenty^ 
two  American  marines  sacrificed  their  lives — 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO         13 

two  hundred  and  fifty  Mexicans  are  no  more, 
as  a  result  of  this  inglorious  war.  The  Pres- 
ident says  this  was  not  a  war.  No,  it  was  in- 
ternational and  political  manslaughter.  Why 
did  he  not  submit  the  flag  incident  to  arbitra- 
tion, as  General  Huerta  suggested?  It  would 
have  been  the  proper  thing  for  him  to  do,  since 
he  and  his  Secretary  of  State  have  been  preach- 
ing arbitration  for  years.  There  is  but  one  an- 
swer and  that  is,  that  he  knew  that  no  inter- 
national board  of  arbitration  would  sustain  his 
contention.  After  he  got  Huerta  and  destroyed 
the  Mexican  Government,  the  American  sol- 
diers and  marines  were  withdrawn  from  Vera 
Cruz  just  as  ingloriously  as  they  were  landed 
there;  and  the  Mexicans,  who  had  been  per- 
suaded by  the  United  States  Army  and  Navy 
officials  to  assist  the  Americans  in  the  govern- 
ment of  their  city,  were  abandoned  and  left  to 
the  mercy  of  the  various  Rebel  factions.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  the  intellect  of  Mexico  has  been 
murdered  and  womanhood  debauched. 

To  the  reader  of  the  Congressional  Record, 
it  would  seem  that  the  President's  relations 
with  Villa  have  been  so  intimate  that  it  was 
impossible  for  him  to  protect  the  just  interests 
of  our  Government  and  its  citizens.  By  rais- 
ing the  embargo  on  arms,  he  permitted  the 
Rebels  to  import  thousands  of  firearms  and 


14        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

millions  of  rounds  of  ammunition  with  which 
they  murdered  American  citizens  and  peaceful 
Mexicans.  This  he  did,  knowing  that  in  all  hu- 
man probability  these  same  arms  and  ammuni- 
tion would  be  used  to  shoot  down  our  own 
soldiers,  when  we  are  ultimately  compelled  to 
put  a  stop  to  the  crimes  against  civilization 
committed  by  these  brigands,  and  he  did  this 
against  the  advice  of  the  commanders  of  our 
Army  and  Navy,  against  the  advice  of  the  men 
who  will  finally  have  to  stand  on  the  firing 
line,  and  receive  in  their  bodies  the  impact  of 
this  same  ammunition,  fired  by  these  same 
rifles,  in  the  hands  of  the  erstwhile  allies  and 
friends  of  our  President. 

While  the  President  has  been  very  sensitive 
about  the  supposed  insult  to  the  flag,  he  has 
not  shown  quite  so  much  sensitiveness  about 
the  American  lives  and  property  in  Mexico,  of 
which  after  all  the  flag  is  but  the  symbol.  He 
has  talked  rather  freely  about  the  sacredness 
and  glory  of  the  American  flag,  but  has  for- 
gotten that  when  the  flag  of  any  nation  fails 
to  protect  the  lives  and  property  of  its  citizens, 
it  becomes  a  mere  rag,  not  even  worthy  of  the 
respect  of  the  most  degraded.  The  Demo- 
cratic platform  of  1912  contains  this  plank: 
"The  constitutional  rights  of  American  citi- 
zens should  protect  them  on  our  borders  and 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO         15 

go  with  them  throughout  the  world,  and  every 
American  citizen  residing  or  having  property 
in  any  foreign  country  is  entitled  to  and  must 
be  given  the  full  protection  of  the  United 
States  Government,  both  for  himself  and  his 
property."  It  was  upon  this  plank  that  thou- 
sands of  Americans  voted  for  Woodrow  Wil- 
son. Has  he  kept  the  faith?  No,  he  has  nnot 
— he  has  even  assisted  the  enemies  of  all  gov- 
d,rnment,  who  liave  committed  unspeakable 
outrages  upon  American  citizens,  and  has  even 
permitted  them  to  bring  into  this  country  and 
sell  the  very  property  that  they  had  stolen  from 
American  citizens.  If  he  could  talk  with  the 
five  hundred  Americans  that  have  been  mur- 
dered by  Villa  and  other  outlaws — if  he  would 
talk  to  the  twenty  thousand  Americans  that 
have  been  deprived  of  their  homes  and  all  their 
property  by  the  very  men  whom  he  armed, 
then  he  would  perhaps  realize  why  it  is  that 
under  his  administration  the  American  flag  is 
not  revered.  He  would  perhaps  realize  why 
so  many  Americans  at  home  and  abroad  con- 
sider his  foreign  policy  weak  and  dishonorable. 
It  is  true  that  President  Wilson  threatened 
the  Mexican  factions  whenever  they  endan- 
gered any  oil  wells,  and  he  also  became  very 
active  when  the  International  Harvester  Com- 
pany's supply  of  sisal  for  the  manufacture  of 


16        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

binder  twine  was  in  danger.  This  was  proper, 
but  why  were  the  lives  and  property  of  the 
thirty  thousand  American  citizens,  who  did 
not  possess  great  wealth,  entirely  ignored?  Is 
our  government  a  plutocracy,  and  is  it  neces- 
sary to  be  a  millionaire  to  get  protection  under 
the  Wilson  administration? 

Over  one  hundred  American  citizens  and 
soldiers  have  been  killed  or  injured  on  Amer- 
ican soil  by  the  followers  of  Villa  and  other 
outlaws  firing  across  the  international  boun- 
dary line.  One  cannot  help  but  share  their  hu- 
miliation— compelled  as  they  were  to  stand 
there  to  be  shot  down,  and  prohibited  from  re- 
turning the  fire.  Governor  Colquitt  of  Texas, 
and  Governor  Hunt  of  Arizona,  finally  relieved 
them  from  this  miserable  and  contemptible  po- 
sition by  threatening  to  send  the  State  Rangers 
and  State  Militia  to  protect  them,  and  thus 
through  shame,  compelled  the  President  to 
send  General  Scott,  against  his  will,  to  meet 
the  murderer  Villa  on  the  international  bridge 
at  El  Paso,  and  beg  him  to  remove  his  cut- 
throats from  the  boundary.  This  procedure  of 
compelling  an  honorable  general  of  the  United 
States  Army  to  hang  around  the  international 
bridge  for  three  days  and  wait  on  the  mur- 
derer. Villa,  has  disgusted  many  of  the  of^cers 
of  our  army. 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO         17 

It  ill  becomes  President  Wilson  to  talk  of 
the  glory  and  sacredness  of  our  flag.  Others 
have  made  it  great — his  administration  has 
disgraced  it  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  and  the 
only  comfort  that  we  can  get  out  of  it,  is  in 
the  anticipation  that  succeeding  administra- 
tions will  again  place  it  on  high,  and  that  the 
dark  blot  put  upon  it  by  this  administration 
will  be  forgotten  in  the  achievements  of  future 
glory. 

If  the  public  were  given  the  facts,  the  mov- 
ing hand  behind  the  scenes  in  the  Mexican 
revolutions  would  be  found  to  be  an  American 
oil  company.  If  the  public  were  given  the 
facts,  it  would  find  that  the  same  oil  company 
has  produced  a  false  and  fraudulent  public 
opinion  by  subsidizing  a  few  of  the  larger  and 
more  influential  newspapers,  which  the  smaller 
newspapers  unconsciously  follow.  If  the  pub- 
lic were  given  the  facts,  the  President,  who  by 
force  of  arms,  overthrew  the  Mexican  Govern- 
ment, and  who  is  responsible  for  the  presen' 
revolting  conditions  in  Mexico,  would  hav* 
been  shamed  out  of  his  position  of  aiding  such 
monsters  as  Villa  and  Zapata,  by  the  moral  and 
just  indignation  of  an  enlightened  public 
opinion. 

Wilson  got  Huerta,  but  was  it  right?  Can 
Woodrow  Wilson  get  any  glory  or  self-satis- 


18        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

faction  out  of  the  misery  and  suffering,  death' 
and  destruction  that  he  has  caused  to  millions 
in  Mexico?  When  he  thinks  of  the  blood  that 
has  been  spilled,  of  the  widows  and  orphans, 
of  outraged  womanhood,  of  the  starving  mil- 
lions, and  when  he  realizes  the  part  he  has 
played  in  this  horrible  tragedy,  does  he  still 
rejoice  as  during  the  days  of  "watchful  wait- 
ing," when  he,  vulture-like,  watched  the  last 
feeble  struggles  of  the  Mexican  Government 
on  behalf  of  civilization;  or  has  his  mad  mania 
of  hatred  of  the  man,  Huerta,  abated  in  the 
full  realization  of  the  awful  fearfulness  into 
which  he  plunged  the  people  of  Mexico? 


LETTER   OF   AMBASSADOR   WILSON. 

In  Congressional  Record. 

Indianapolis,  Ind.,  May  11,  1914. 
Hon.  William  Alden  Smith, 
Washington,  D.  C. 

My  Dear  Senator:  I  have  just  been  shown 
a  copy  of  the  Congressional  Record  of  April 
21,  which  contains  a  copy  of  the  recommenda- 
tions made  by  me  to  the  President  and  after- 
wards read  to  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Rela- 
tions of  the  Senate,  with  reference  to  the  rec- 
ognition of  the  present  provisional  government 
of  Mexico.  I  detect  no  error  in  the  wording 
of  the  recommendations.  They  were  care- 
fully considered  at  the  time  they  were  offered, 
and  I  think  have  been  fully  justified  by  events 
which  have  since  occurred. 

In  the  comments,  however,  which  you  had 
occasion  to  make  at  the  time  of  submitting  the 
recommendations  you  fell  into  the  very  nat- 
ural error  of  assigning  them  chronologically 
to  the  month  of  March,  1913.  I  think  it  of 
some  importance  that  it  should  be  known  that 
these  recommendations  were  made  to  the 
President  and  afterwa'rds  read  to  the  Senate 


20        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  in  the  month 
of  August,  1913,  while  I  was  in  Washington 
under  instructions  from  the  Secretary  of  State 
and  prior  to  the  acceptance  of  my  resignation. 

Inasmuch  as  some  overzealous  supporters  of 
the  President's  policies  toward  Mexico  have 
with  unfortunate  haste  commented  upon  the 
recommendations  of  August  as  being  the  sole 
and  only  solution  of  the  difficult  situation  pro- 
posed by  me,  I  feel  that  I  am  justified  in  say- 
ing that  the  records  of  the  Department  of  State 
show  conclusively  that  in  the  early  months  of 
the  present  administration — either  April  or 
May,  I  think — I  recommended  the  uncondi- 
tional recognition  of  the  Huerta  administra- 
tion. If  this  is  denied,  I  shall  know  how  to 
demonstrate  the  truth.  I  made  the  same  rec- 
ommendations with  reference  to  recognition  to 
the  Wilson  administration  that  I  had  made  to 
the  Taft  administration  in  February,  and  I 
may  say  here,  without  fear  of  contradiction, 
that  the  Taft  administration  recognized  the 
legality  of  the  installation  of  the  Huerta  gov- 
ernment and  withheld  formal  recognition  only 
because  of  the  delay  of  the  new  Mexican  ad- 
ministration in  adjusting  certain  long  pending 
differences. 

When  I  made  the  recommendations  for  un- 
conditional recognition  of  the  Huerta  admin- 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        21 

istration  in  the  early  days  of  the  present  ad- 
ministration, my  position  was  justified  by 
every  consideration  of  interest  and  humanity; 
the  revolution  against  Madero  had  been  gen- 
erally accepted  throughout  the  country.  For- 
eign governments  were  rapidly  according 
recognition,  and  the  present  revolutionary 
movement  was  a  cloud  no  larger  than  a  man's 
hand  on  the  horizon.  Prompt  action  by  our 
government,  if  taken  then,  would,  in  my  judg- 
ment, have  averted  all  the  horrors,  sacrifices, 
odiums,  and  dangers  which  followed.  Four 
months  later,  when  I  made  the  recommenda- 
tions which  you  have  placed  upon  the  records 
of  the  Senate,  the  situation  had  entirely 
changed.  Our  policy  toward  this  unfortunate 
country  had  become  the  subject  of  severe  criti- 
cism in  European  chancelleries,  had  excited 
profound  distrust  in  Latin  America,  had  alien- 
ated the  friendly  sentiments  of  the  Mexican 
government,  and  inspired  the  hopes  and  ral- 
lied the  spirits  of  those  in  rebellion  against  the 
government. 

I  was,  therefore,  obliged  to  consider  three 
things  in  making  the  recommendations,  which 
you  have  placed  upon  the  Senate  records,  viz.: 

First :  The  best  method  of  restoring  our  na- 
tional prestige. 


22        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

Second :  The  best  method  of  affording  pro- 
tection to  our  nationals  in  Northern  Mexico, 
without  being  forced  to  go  to  war. 

Third:  The  best  method  of  meeting  what  I 
understood  to  be  the  views  and  of  conforming 
to  the  announced  policies  of  the  present  ad- 
ministration. 

To  accomplish  the  restoration  of  our  na- 
tional prestige  I  recommended  the  severe  con- 
ditions to  be  imposed  before  according  recog- 
nition; to  protect  our  nationals  in  Northern 
Mexico  I  recommended  an  agreement  with  the 
Mexican  government  to  the  effect  that  in  case 
of  necessity  we  should  be  permitted  to  go  as 
far  south  as  the  twenty-sixth  parallel  with  its 
consent — below  the  twenty-sixth  parallel  there 
was  no  semblance  of  a  revolution;  to  meet  the 
views  and  to  conform  to  the  policies  of  the 
present  administration,  I  made  the  recommen- 
dation for  demanding  guarantees  for  a  consti- 
tutional election.  At  the  time  I  made  this 
recommendation,  I  knew  that  a  constitutional 
election  could  not  be  held  in  Mexico,  but  I  also 
believed  it  would  be  impossible  to  carry  this 
fact  home  to  the  minds  of  those  in  charge  of 
the  foreign  affairs  of  this  nation.  I  hoped  that 
some  satisfactory  process  might  be  gone 
through  which  would  result  in  the  selection  of 
a  good  man  for  President,  who,  without  hav- 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        23 

ing  been  elected  by  constitutional  methods, 
might  nevertheless  govern  in  accordance  with 
democratic  principles  and  endeavor  to  lay 
foundations  upon  which  an  intelligent  and  in- 
structed suffrage  might  be  built  up. 

The  recommendations  which  I  made  in  the 
first  instance  I  still  believe  should  have  been 
acted  upon,  and  those  which  I  had  occasion  to 
offer  later,  and  which  are  the  subject  of  this 
letter,  I  am  sure  every  disinterested  person 
must  believe  were  conceived  in  a  spirit  of  devo- 
tion to  the  interests  of  this  government. 
Very  sincerely  yours, 

HENRY  LANE  WILSON. 


PANCHO  VILLA. 

William  Lemke 

''Villa  is  known  and  has  been  known  for 
years;  known  to  every  American  in  northern 
Mexico  and  on  the  border;  known  as  an  ordi- 
nary, common,  ignorant,  brutal  murderer  for 
hire."  He  was  born  about  forty-eight  years 
ago  in  the  State  of  Durango.  All  but  thirteen 
of  those  forty-eight  years  have  been  spent  in 
the  actual  commission  of  crime — to  murder, 
torture  and  mutilate,  that  is  his  profession. 
He  has  personally  murdered  more  men  and 
has  tortured  and  mutilated  more,  than  any 
other  character  in  all  history.  At  the  age  of 
fourteen  he  was  imprisoned  for  cattle  stealing; 
at  fifteen  he  served  a  term  for  homicide.  Later 
he  organized  a  band  of  robbers  with  headquar- 
ters in  the  mountainous  regions  of  Durango, 
and  became  the  terror  of  all  that  district. 

From  this  time  on  his  life  is  a  repetition  of 
crime.  I  shall  mention  just  a  few  of  his  crimes 
in  order  to  give  the  reader  an  idea  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  "Beast''  that  President  Wilson  and 
Secretary  Bryan  have  assisted  in  overthrow- 
ing the  Mexican  government,  and  whom  they 
have  attempted  to  fasten  upon  the  fifteen  mil- 
lion people  in  Mexico. 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        25 

"When  the  city  of  Juarez  was  taken  by  Ma- 
dero  in  May,  1911,  Villa,  while  seated  on  a 
table,  drew  his  revolver  and  shot  and  killed  a 
defenseless  old  man  without  provocation. 
During  the  same  month,  at  the  town  of  Rosa- 
lia, he  shot  a  Spaniard  over  the  head  of  his 
wife,  who  was  trying  to  defend  him,  and  then 
kicked  her  in  the  face  as  she  lay  on  the  dead 
body  of  her  husband." 

A  little  later  Villa  at  the  head  of  a  band  of 
desperados,  dragged  three  hundred  and  seven 
defenseless  Chinese — men,  women  and  chil- 
dren— through  the  streets  of  Torreon.  "Lari^ 
ats  were  tied  to  the  ankles  of  some  and  then 
were  tied  to  the  horns  of  saddles  with  the 
horses  headed  in  opposite  directions.  Then 
the  horses  were  whipped  into  a  gallop  and  the 
Chinamen  torn  limb  from  limb."  Children 
were  thrown  into  the  air  and  caught  on  knives 
as  they  came  down.  This  massacre  has  been 
described  as  the  most  horrible  that  has  ever 
taken  place  on  this  continent. 

"When  !the  Orosco  revolution  broke  out, 
Villa  looted  the  city  of  Parral.  He  was  arrest- 
ed, but  managed  to  escape.  A  year  or  so 
later  he  captured  Casas  Grandes,  which  was 
defended  by  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
home  guards.  When  they  surrendered  one 
hundred  and  fifteen  were  set  up  against  a  wall 


26        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

and  shot  by  Villa.  Ninety  women,  including 
seventeen  little  girls,  were  outraged  on  this 
occasion." 

"Villa  next  took  the  town  of  San  Andres. 
Here  he  murdered  more  than  two  hundred 
men,  women  and  children.  In  order  to  econo- 
mize cartridges,  he  placed  one  behind  the  other 
up  to  five  at  a  time.  Very  few  were  killed  out- 
right. The  bodies  of  the  dead  and  wounded 
were  then  soaked  in  petroleum  and  thrown 
into  bonfires.  After  this  he  slipped  into  Tor- 
reon  and  murdered  over  two  hundred  Span- 
iards, literally  beating  some  to  death." 

"Domingo  Flores,  a  resident  of  El  Paso, 
went  across  the  river  to  Juarez  on  the  22nd  of 
February,,  1914,  to  have  a  settlement  with 
Villa.  He  had  been  smuggling  arms  for  Villa 
in  partnership  with  another  man.  The  part- 
ner had  left,  taking  with  him  three  thousand 
five  hundred  out  of  the  ten  thousand  dollars 
which  had  been  entrusted  to  them  with  which 
to  buy  arms  and  ammunition.  Flores  went 
over  to  account  for  six  thousand  five  hundred 
dollars,  and  to  explain  to  Villa  that  the  part- 
ner had  left,  taking  with  him  three  thousand 
five  hundred.  Villa  put  him  in  jail.  The 
mother  of  Flores  went  over  and  attempted  to 
secure  the  liberty  of  her  son.  She  was  told  by 
Villa  that  if  she  would  raise  three  thousand 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        27 

five  hundred  dollars  he  would  release  him. 
The  old  lady  returned  to  her  home  in  El  Paso, 
made  every  effort  and  finally  succeeded  in 
selling  her  little  house  and  lot — everything  in 
the  world  that  she  had — and  raised  three  thou- 
sand three  hundred  dollars,  lacking  only  two 
hundred  of  the  correct  amount.  She  went  to 
Villa,  who  accepted  the  money,  but  refused  to 
turn  the  boy  loose  until  she  had  paid  the  other 
two  hundred.  His  sister  finally  managed  to 
secure  the  two  hundred  dollars  and  took  it  to 
Villa,  who  accepted  the  money  and  sent  the 
girl  into  the  jail  to  see  her  brother  released. 
The  brother  was  shot  in  her  presence.  She 
was  outraged,  and  then  told  by  Villa  person- 
ally to  get  back  into  the  United  States  and 
not  to  come  to  Mexico  again.'' 

"A  few  weeks  later.  Villa  entered  the  city 
of  Chihuahua,  rounded  up  the  Spaniards,  con- 
fiscated every  dollar  of  their  property, 
amounting  to  five  million  dollars,  and  then  put 
them  on  a  special  train,  went  down  to  the 
train,  counted  them,  and  told  them  to  get  out 
of  the  country  and  never  to  return,  or  he  would 
kill  every  one.  When  he  found  that  on  the 
train  there  were  wives  and  children  of  some  of 
the  Spaniards,  who  had  been  born  in  Mexico, 
he  took  them  off  and  would  not  let  them  go 


28        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

with  their  husbands  and  fathers  to  the  Amer- 
ican side  where  they  might  seek  safety  and 
have  some  means  of  support." 

William  Benton,  a  British  subject,  owned  a 
ranch  in  Mexico.  Villa  had  looted  it  several 
times.  When  Villa  captured  Juarez,  Mr.  Ben- 
ton went  to  him  and  tried  to  get  a  settlement. 
He  was  stabbed  to  death — Villa  personally 
murdered  him  without  provocation. 

On  account  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  the 
English  government  requested  our  govern- 
ment to  make  an  investigation.  Villa  an- 
swered that  he  had  never  seen  Benton.  Secre- 
tary Bryan  accepted  this  statement  as  true. 
The  English  government  produced  evidence 
that  Benton  had  been  seen  to  enter  Villa's 
house.  Villa  then  admitted  that  he  killed 
Benton,  but  claimed  that  Benton  had  first 
drawn  a  revolver  on  him,  and  that  he  had  killed 
him  in  self-defense.  This  explanation  was 
satisfactory  to  Secretary  Bryan.  Self-preser- 
vation is  the  first  law  of  nature. 

But  the  English  government  was  persistent 
and  produced  evidence  showing  that  Benton 
was  unarmed.  Villa  answered  that  while  he 
had  seen  no  revolver,  yet  Benton  put  his  hand 
on  his  hip  pocket  as  though  reaching  for  one, 
and  that  he.  Villa,  overpowered  him,  had  him 
arrested  and  court-martialed,  and  that  he  was 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        29 

found  guilty  and  executed  by  a  firing 
squad.  He  stated  further  that  Benton  was 
allowed  to  die  an  honorable  death,  and  that 
he  had  been  buried  with  religious  ceremony  in 
the  little  churchyard  at  Juarez.  This  explana- 
tion was  both  satisfactory  and  pleasing  to  Sec- 
retary Bryan — the  whole  thing  had  been  done 
so  religiously. 

Still  the  English  government  was  not  satis- 
fied. It  produced  evidence  showing  that  Ben- 
ton was  not  shot  by  a  firing  squad,  but  was 
murdered  by  Villa  personally.  They  request- 
ed that  the  body  of  Benton  be  produced  for 
examination,  and  then  given  to  Mrs.  Benton 
for  burial.  Villa  objected,  claiming  that  it  was 
sacrilegious  to  disturb  the  dead.  Secretary 
Bryan  acquiesced,  but  the  obdurate  English 
government  intimated  that  Villa,  the  murderer 
of  hundreds,  could  have  no  religious  scruples, 
and  insisted  that  the  body  be  produced.  Then 
President  Wilson  and  Secretary  Bryan  tried 
''moral  suasion"  on  Villa,  and  Villa  demurely 
replied  that  Benton  had  not  been  buried  in 
Juarez  at  all,  but  had  been  shipped  for  burial 
to  Chihuahua,  He  then  hurriedly  departed 
for  Chihuahua.  This  persistence  of  the  Eng- 
lish government  embarrassed  him. 

But  still  the  English  government  persisted, 
and  our  government  tried  some  more  "moral 


30        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

suasion."  Villa  finally  agreed  that  he  would 
permit  an  international  commission  to  exam- 
ine the  body,  but  before  he  agreed  to  this  he 
had  made  arrangements  with  Carranza  to  have 
him  step  in  at  the  opportune  moment  and  up- 
set the  whole  proceeding  by  declaring  that  if 
England  wished  to  have  any  dealings  with  the 
constitutionalist^,  she  must  first  recognize 
them  and  deal  with  them  directly,  thus  politely 
informing  our  government  that  this  whole 
Benton  affair  was  none  of  its  business. 

Carranza  then  appointed  a  commission  of 
his  own.  This  commission,  in  accordance  with 
instructions  previously  given  it,  reported  that 
Benton  was  killed  somewhere  between  Juarez 
and  Chihuahua  by  a  man  named  Ferro.  This 
man  was  already  under  death  sentence  for  hav- 
ing displeased  Villa.  He  was  executed — dead 
men  tell  no  tales.  "Moral  suasion''  and  the 
amateurish  diplomacy  of  our  administration 
was  outgeneraled  and  outwitted  by  the  ignor- 
ant, brutal  murderer.  Villa. 

At  about  the  same  time  that  Villa  murdered 
Benton,  he  also  murdered  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States  by  the  name  of  Bach.  While 
the  American  press  made  a  great  deal,  and 
justly  so,  of  the  murder  of  Benton,  very  little 
was  said  about  Bach.  Why  should  there  be — 
he  was  just  an  American  citizen,  and  like  hun- 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        31 

dreds  of  his  countrymen,  who  sleep  in  lonely 
graves  in  Mexico,  he  was  passed  over  in  silence. 

"Villa  now  has  in  his  hands  Luis  Terrazas, 
son  of  old  General  Terrazas,  who  is  one  of  the 
few  remaining  men  that  made  Mexico.  Gen- 
eral Terrazas  gained  the  first  victory  over  the 
French,  drove  them  out  of  the  city  of  Chihua- 
hua and  put  Juarez  into  power.  His  son  is  an 
educated  man — a  man  whose  society  one  can- 
not help  but  enjoy.  Villa  demanded  of  him 
every  dollar  he  had,  and  received  it.  He  tor- 
tured him  and  made  him  disclose  the  hiding 
place  of  five  hundred  and  ninety  thousand  dol- 
lars. He  was  promised  his  freedom,  but  was 
not  released.  Villa  now  demands  of  old  Gen- 
eral Terrazas  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars,  not  for  the  surrender  of  his  son,  but 
simply  as  an  agreed  price  for  his  life  at  the 
present  moment." 

I  have  endeavored  to  select  a  few  of  the 
hundreds  of  crimes  committed  by  Villa  in 
such  a  way  as  to  give  the  reader  an  idea  of 
the  extent  and  character  of  these  crimes.  I 
have  taken  my  facts  from  personal  observa- 
tion and  from  the  Congressional  Record,  and 
more  especially  from  the  speeches  of  Senator 
Fall  of  New  Mexico,  and  I  have  not  hesitated 
to  use  the  Senator's  own  words  wherever 
consistent  with  the  rest  of  the  article. 


32        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 
ZAPATA. 

Like  some  huge  crawling,  stinging  thing 

He  sallies  from  his  lair, 
And  piteous  cries  and  dying  sighs 

Disturb  the  desert  air. 
With  this  brute  chief  the  shrift  is  brief 

And  blood  is  everywhere. 

He  does  not  fight  as  patriots  fight 

Or  dream  as  patriots  dream; 
His  powerful  band  could  aid  his  land, 

But  that  is  not  his  scheme. 
His  eyes  grow  bright,  his  heart  grows  light 

When  he  hears  the  tortured  scream. 

His  soldiers  tremble  and  salute 

To  do  his  last  decree. 
For  these  wild  brutes  have  met  no  brute 

More  merciless  than  he. 
Pitting  his  might  'gainst  law  and  right, 

Laughing  at  every  plea. 

Zapata!    All  his  hellish  plans 

No  mind  but  his  may  know; 
If  his  brute  strength  shall  serve  at  length 

To  banish  every  foe, 
Pity  the  weak  that  his  lust  will  seek — 

And  God  help  Mexico! 
William  F.  Kirk  in  New  York  "American." 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  MEXICAN  POLICY. 

By  Senator  Wm.  E.  Borah. 

The  President  now  says  that  we  are  to  let 
Mexico  alone.  How  unfortunate  that  that 
was  not  the  policy  from  the  beginning.  I 
think  if  he  had  said  in  the  beginning  that  we 
were  to  let  Mexico  alone,  he  would  have  been 
in  an  almost  impregnable  position.  All  that 
needed  to  have  been  added  to  that  to  make  a 
perfect  policy  would  have  been  that  Mexico 
should  respect  the  rights  of  American  citizens 
and  of  foreigners  living  in  that  country.  Let 
them  settle  their  own  form  of  government,  let 
them  elect  whom  they  would,  let  them  have  a 
despotism  or  a  republic,  according  as  they 
lived  up  to  the  one  or  the  other,  and  that  we 
would  recognize  whatever  form  of  government 
they  established,  always  adding  the  proposi- 
tion that  whether  it  was  one  form  of  govern- 
ment or  another,  the  rights  and  the  lives  of 
American  citizens  should  be  protected  there- 
under. 

But  we  did  go  to  Mexico,  Mr.  President. 
What  did  we  go  for?  What  were  we  at  Vera 
Cruz  about?    What  were  the  results  of  the  ex- 


34        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

pedition?  The  first  result  was  that  we  killed 
two  hundred  Mexicans;  the  second  result  was 
that  we  lost  twenty-two  of  our  own  men.  We 
were  at  war  with  Mexico.  Had  we  killed  one 
English  subject  or  one  German  subject  or  one 
subject  of  France,  there  would  have  been  no 
doubt  about  our  being  at  war  with  that  coun- 
try. The  only  reason  it  did  not  take  on  all  "the 
pomp  and  circumstance  of  glorious  war"  was 
the  fact  that  the  country  with  which  we  were 
at  war  was  unable  to  respond  against  the  pow- 
erful enemy  who  had  entered  its  borders.  Not 
only  did  we  intervene  when  we  declared 
against  Huerta,  but  we  were  at  war  when 
blood  was  shed  upon  the  soil  of  Vera  Cruz. 
That  was  the  first  result. 

The  second  result  of  our  going  there  was 
the  destruction  of  the  only  semblance  of  gov- 
ernment which  they  had  in  Mexico. 

The  third  thing  which  we  did  in  connection 
with  it  is  one  which  may  have  far-reaching 
consequences  in  the  future,  and  that  is,  we 
notified  foreign  nations  that  they  must  keep 
hands  off  of  Mexico,  that  they  must  not  build 
up  or  give  sustenance  and  support  to  Huerta, 
or  to  any  form  of  government.  The  result  of 
it  was  that  we  assumed  the  responsibility  mor- 
ally, if  not  legally,  for  the  injuries  which  flowed 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        35 

from  that  time  on  to  those  foreign  powers  or 
to  their  nationals  by  reason  of  the  acts  or  of  the 
conduct  of  the  warring  factions  of  Mexico. 

Then  we  assumed  further,  Mr.  President,  at 
that  time  to  reform  the  land  laws  of  Mexico. 
So  we  did  not  let  Mexico  alone. 

What  is  the  situation  in  Mexico  today?  Mr. 
President,  the  situation  in  Mexico  today  is  in- 
describable. We  have  no  conception  of  it.  I 
doubt  if  it  would  be  possible  to  conceive  a 
proper  measurement  of  the  condition  of  af- 
fairs in  Mexico  unless  we  were  there,  but  we 
know  that  it  is  as  bad  as  it  could  possibly  be  in 
a  civilized  or  semi-civilized  community.  We 
know  that  over  two  hundred  and  fifty  of  our 
own  citizens  have  from  time  to  time  been  mur- 
dered; we  know  that  countless  others  have 
been  injured  in  different  ways  and  have  no 
apparent  remedy  or  redress. 

Now,  sir,  when  a  condition  of  affairs  exists 
in  Mexico  such  as  the  civilized  world  has  sel- 
dom witnessed  and  Republicans  rise  to  ex- 
press their  views  as  to  what  shall  be  done,  the 
answer  which  we  get  from  the  public  rostrum 
of  the  country  by  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the 
Nation  is  practically,  in  the  language  of  Ba- 
rere,  that  the  revolution  in  Mexico  shall  be 
permitted  to  float  in  upon  seas  of  blood  and 


36        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

that  the  man  who  questions  the  course  of  revo- 
lution in  Mexico  is  to  be  suspected  before  the 
American  people! 

Mr.  President,  speaking  for  myself,  I  am  de- 
sirous of  peace  with  Mexico;  I  want  no  war; 
and  I  know  we  shall  never  take  any  part  of 
the  territory  of  that  Republic;  but  above  and 
beyond  that,  and  more  important  to  my  mind, 
is  the  fact  that  we  should  at  least  protect  our 
own  citizenship,  securing  our  women  against 
ravishment  and  our  men  from  murder  at  the 
hands  of  those  ferocious  men  who  prey  upon 
our  nationals  wherever  they  find  them  in  their 
territory.  There  are  some  things  which  are 
dearer  to  me  than  peace.  I  do  know  this,  Mr. 
President,  that  no  nation  ever  retains  respect 
among  the  other  nations  of  the  earth,  or  long 
maintains  the  consideration  of  other  powers, 
that  does  not  protect  its  citizens  and  the  honor 
of  its  women  and  prevent  them  from  being 
ravished  and  -murdered  even  upon  its  very 
doorsteps. 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  ALLY. 

Condensed  Speech  of  Senator  Fall. 

Villa  issues  his  own  currency,  and  if  you  do 
not  take  it  you  are  shot.  You  have  to  take  it 
at  the  price  he  puts  on  it.  You  are  not  per- 
mitted to  pay  your  laborers  with  American  or 
Mexican  gold.  You  must  take  your  gold  to 
Villa  and  you  must  buy  from  him  certificates 
at  a  given  price — thirty-five  cents  on  the  dol- 
lar. They  are  quoted  on  the  market  today  at 
nine  and  a  half  cents,  but  you  are  not  permitted 
to  buy  them  from  a  broker.  You  are  not  al- 
lowed to  start  a  new  enterprise  on  the  money 
of  Mr.  Villa  unless  you  buy  it  from  him.  The 
result  is  that  when  it  is  once  out  in  circulation, 
there  is  no  chance  for  a  new  enterprise  to  start 
up,  except  by  getting  some  more  of  it  in  cir- 
culation from  Villa  himself. 

Pancho  Villa  owns  a  packing  house  in 
Juarez.  He  seized  it  and  took  charge  of  it. 
Then  issued  a  decree  prohibiting  the  exporta- 
tion of  cattle  from  Chihuahua.  He  has  had 
some  trouble  because  the  stolen  cattle  were 
seized  on  this  side  and  identified  by  their 
brands.    So  he  took  possession  of  this  packing 


38        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

house  with  an  American  representative  of  one 
of  the  great  packing  establishments  of  this 
country  in  partnership  with  him,  and  there 
they  are  killing  stolen  cattle,  known  to  every 
man  in  the  State  of  Chihuahua  to  be  stolen, 
taken  from  Americans  and  Mexicans  alike. 
They  are  killed  and  shipped  into  this  country. 
The  hides  are  packed  so  that  there  is  no  way 
of  identifying  them,  and  our  government  will 
not  revise  its  laws  so  as  to  compel  them  to 
state  what  certain  branded  hides  are  in  the 
bales  of  five  hundred  pounds,  which  are  shipped 
over  here,  although  the  collector  of  the  port  of 
El  Paso  has  made  this  request. 

These  things  are  going  on  all  the  time.  You 
have  heard  of  the  millions  of  dollars'  worth  of 
cotton  belonging  to  the  Spanish  and  the 
French  citizens  that  were  seized  at  Torreon 
by  Villa.  It  is  an  open  scandal  in  Mexico  that 
certain  parties  claiming  to  represent  this  gov- 
ernment are  said  to  have  received  two  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  out  of  the  sale  of  this 
cotton.  In  the  eyes  of  the  people  of  Spain  and 
France,  and  other  countries,  we  are  acting  as 
an  international  fence  in  protecting  these  ban- 
dits and  robbers  who  are  stealing  property  in 
Mexico  and  shipping  it  over  here  with  im- 
punity, and  we  are  enforcing  our  laws  so  as 
to  protect  them,  instead  of  assisting  the  own- 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        39 

ers  so  that  they  may  make  demands  for  repay- 
ment if  there  ever  is  a  government  established 
in  Mexico. 

If  the  President  would  enquire  of  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  State  Department,  v^ho  is  al- 
ways with  Villa  in  more  ways  than  one,  he 
would  know  that  there  never  has  been  in  the 
history  of  Mexico  such  bold-faced  thievery  and 
grafting  as  has  been  carried  on  by  the  pets  of 
Mr.  Villa,  some  of  them  foreigners,  under  the 
system  of  concessions.  Never  in  the  history 
of  Mexico,  nor  the  history  of  any  civilized 
country  has  anything  like  it  been  known.  The 
birds  of  prey  are  gathered  along  the  border, 
and  they  have  their  representatives  at  the 
throne  of  Villa. 

The  great  struggle  in  Mexico  is  over  the 
Tampico  oil  fields.  Every  move  Villa  makes 
in  attempting  to  drive  his  foes  out  of  his  way 
in  the  north  is  toward  Tampico.  It  is  for  the 
purpose  of  seizing  and  confiscating  the  oil 
wells  in  that  district,  which  is  the  greatest  oil 
district  on  this  continent.  Efforts  have  al- 
ready been  made  by  agents  of  Villa  in  this 
country  to  finance  him  when  he  seizes  those 
oil  fields.  Whose  property  is  it?  It  makes  no 
difference.  One  method  or  another  of  confis- 
cation is  used. 


40        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

When  we  read  in  the  papers  that  a  certain 
piece  of  property  has  been  or  will  be  confis- 
cated, we  naturally  think  that  means  by  a  de- 
cree of  some  authorized  or  duly  constituted 
body,  followed  up  by  the  party  whose  property 
is  taken  having  his  day  in  court.  What  they 
understand  in  Mexico  by  a  decree  of  confisca- 
tion is  confiscation  such  as  is  perpetrated  by 
the  train  robber  upon  the  express  messenger 
with  a  six-shooter  at  his  head.  No  legal  forms 
have  ever  been  invoked  or  carried  out  or  pro- 
ceeded under  in  any  decree  of  confiscation  in 
Mexico. 

In  Mexico  there  were  sisters  of  charity,  wo- 
men engaged  in  undertaking  to  spread  educa- 
tion among  the  poor  people,  women  engaged 
in  charitable  work  in  the  hospitals  and  sani- 
tariums, and  there  is  not  one  of  them  left  today 
to  carry  on  the  work,  but  hundreds  of  them 
have  suffered  the  most  horrible  outrages  at  the 
hands  of  these  so-called  Constitutionalists. 
There  is  not  one  solely  to  blame,  but  all  are 
equally  guilty.  There  has  just  been  driven  out 
of  Guadalajara  in  the  last  day  or  two  one  of 
the  men  who  drove  women  along  in  front  of 
him — kindly,  gentle,  charitable,  educated  wo- 
men. He  drove  them  along,  herding  them  for 
the  use  of  his  army  when  he  evacuated  Guad- 
alajara.    I  have  said  that  every  town  was  the 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        41 

enemy's  country.  In  going  through  the  coun- 
try the  poor,  common,  ordinary  Mexicans, 
who  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  revolution, 
who  were  not  interested  in  it,  who  were 
friendly,  and  who  met  them  in  a  friendly  way 
when  they  came  through,  have  been  mal- 
treated and  shot  down  without  provocation 
or  excuse  by  so-called  "Constitutionalists,'* 
"Villistas,"  and  others,  their  homes  burned, 
their  property  seized,  and  their  women  out- 
raged. It  makes  no  difference  who  they  are, 
every  piece  of  loot  that  can  be  obtained  is  con- 
sidered legitimate  loot,  and  every  town  that  is 
captured  is  the  enemy's  country  for  the  pur- 
pose of  loot  and  worse  than  loot. 

I  have  denounced  Villa  before  as  a  bandit 
without  conscience,  as  a  bloody  murderer  for 
hire,  and  I  have  known  of  him  personally  for 
years.  When  Mr.  Villa  went  into  the  City  of 
Mexico,  at  the  time  Gutierrez  went  in  as  Presi- 
dent, he  visited  a  hotel  in  that  city  known  as 
thei  Hotel  Palaccio.  The  proprietor  of  the 
hotel  is  a  French  reservist  who  had  joined  his 
colors  and  who  is  now  fighting  for  his  country 
in  France.  Before  leaving  the  City  of  Mexico 
this  Frenchman  made  a  schedule  of  his  prop- 
erty and  placed  it  in  the  hands  of  the  French 
embassy.  He  left  his  wife,  a  young  French 
woman,  in  charge  of  the  hotel.    I  am  not  going 


42        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

into  all  of  the  details,  I  do  not  want  to  arouse 
passion,  but  I  do  want  the  people  to  be  in- 
formed. Suffice  it  to  say  that  Villa,  with  a  file 
of  soldiers,  dragged  that  French  woman  from 
her  home,  took  her,  screaming,  down  the  street 
in  his  automobile,  and  kept  her  for  four  days — 
Villa  himself,  personally.  That  was  no  act  of 
one  of  his  irresponsible  officers  or  vandals.  I 
am  not  going  to  repeat  rumor  as  to  what  hap- 
pened to  her  after  that.  These  facts  are  veri- 
fied. This  is  the  man  whom  the  administra- 
tion has  apparently,  and  undoubtedly  sincerely, 
thought  might  be  used  to  work  out  something 
good  for  Mexico. 

At  the  outside,  200,000  people  have  been  in- 
terested in  this  revolution.  There  are  fifteen 
million  Mexican  people  appealing  to  the  Chris- 
tian people  of  the  United  States  and  of  the 
world.  Religion  itself  is  calling  upon  the  civ- 
ilized nations  of  the  earth  to  uphold  that  ban- 
ner which  was  carried  among  those  poor  In- 
dians three  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago. 

If  the  State  Department  of  this  govern- 
ment would  publish  its  reports,  would  publish 
statements  as  to  why  Huerta  left  Mexico,  and 
a  list  of  the  outrages  committed  by  Villa,  the 
killing  of  men,  women  and  children,  the  assas- 
sination of  members  of  Congress,  of  members 
of  the  Senate,  the  assassination  of  everyone 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        43 

who  disagreed  with  him,  names  and  lists  giv- 
en by  the  then  President,  Gutierrez,  if  these 
lists  could  be  published,  and  if  the  people  of 
the  United  States  could  see  the  affidavits  which 
have  been  made  by  the  women  of  the  religious 
orders  in  Mexico  and  the  statements  which 
there  has  been  no  attempt  made  to  controvert, 
showing  the  absolute  breaking  down  of  civili- 
zation, the  President  of  the  United  States 
would  no  longer  remain  in  ignorance  and  in 
control  of  the  sentiment  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States. 


BRYAN— PROMOTER. 

By  John  Hazen  Hazzard 

The  shamelessness  of  Bryan  in  exploiting 
Pancho  Villa  is  without  parallel  in  American 
history.  Together  they  form  an  unholy  alli- 
ance that  cannot  be  justified  in  terms  of  Amer- 
ican honor.  In  promoting  the  fortunes  of  this 
bandit  the  Secretary  of  State  has  resorted  to 
methods  which  are  so  brazen  and  unscrupu- 
lous that  intelligent  observers  are  aghast  at  his 
startling  self-revelation.  Methods  that  are 
wholly  devoid  of  the  American  spirit  of  fair 
play  and  more  like  the  shifty,  conscienceless 
tactics  we  are  wont  to  ascribe  to  other  people. 
Bryan's  fellow  countrymen  have  looked  on  the 
use  of  his  exalted  office  to  advertise  "The  Com- 
moner'' as  a  stroke  of  business  not  exactly 
illegitimate.  They  have  watched  more  with 
pity  than  censure  his  Chautauqua  perform- 
ances for  money.  They  have  come  to  realize 
that  this  "man  of  the  people"  has  an  infinite 
capacity  for  accumulating  wealth,  which  is 
certainly  no  crime,  but  rather  an  interesting 
commentary  on  his  professions  of  self-sacrific- 
ing principles.  But  it  is  no  exaggeration  to 
sav  that  the  people  are  dumb  with  amazement 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        45 

to  find  this  man  of  advertised  noble  ideals 
prostituting  his  high  office  in  the  service  of  a 
notorious  gunman  and  cutthroat. 

To  w^hat  end?  Has  he  really  hypnotized 
himself  into  the  belief  that  in  some  inscrutable 
way  of  Providence  his  disgraceful  actions  v^ill 
be  of  service  to  humanity?  There  have  been 
men  v^ho  have  burned  'Vitches"  at  the  stake 
with  good  intentions.  There  are  and  always 
have  been  those  who  believe  that  the  end  justi- 
fies the  means.  Our  notable  penal  institutions 
are  full  of  them. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Bryan  does  not  want 
to  have  the  United  States  at  war  with  any 
other  country  while  he  is  in  a  position  to  use 
his  influence  against  war.  It  has  been  pointed 
out  that  the  Secretary  has  keen  visions  of  the 
$40,000  Nobel  peace  prize.  Even  so,  the  fact 
remains  that  Bryan  wants  peace  at  any  price. 
But  what  must  one  think  of  the  warped  nature 
of  a  man  whose  conscience  will  not  let  him 
fight  his  neighbor  with  whom  he  has  a  quarrel, 
but  who  sees  nothing  wrong  in  hiring  a  thug 
"to  beat  him  up"? 

What  must  the  nation  think  of  a  man  who 
carries  that  warped  soul  into  high  office  and 
injects  it  into  an  international  misunderstand- 
ing involving  the  welfare  of  a  hundred  million 
people?    Is  he  a  sincere  lover  of  peace  or  is  he 


46        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

simply  a  monumental  hypocrite?  When  the 
full  history  of  the  Bryan-Villa  alliance  is  writ- 
ten, it  will  scarcely  be  believed  that  such  a 
thing  could  be  in  this  enlightened  age. 

Perhaps  out  of  this  Mexican  welter  and 
muddle  may  develop  something  of  lasting 
good  to  Mexico.  It  may  conceivably  be  that  a 
United  States'  protectorate  over  the  neighbor- 
ing republic,  or  United  States'  occupation  and 
exploitation  of  that  rich  country,  even  without 
"the  consent  of  the  governed,"  will  bring  peace 
and  prosperity  to  the  Mexican  people.  The 
scroll  of  the  future  is  yet  to  be  read.  What- 
ever the  future  may  be,  for  good  or  ill,  in  Mex- 
ico, history  will  record  that  the  methods  of  the 
administration  in  bringing  Huerta  "to  terms" 
were  unworthy  of  American  traditions  and 
particularly  that  the  activities  and  intrigues  of 
the  Secretary  of  State  were  unworthy  of  any 
honorable  man  and  a  disgrace  to  our  country. 

History  will  record  that  the  Secretary  of 
State  used  his  office  to  promote  and  press- 
agent  a  self-confessed  murderer  and  bandit  in 
a  friendly  neighboring  country  as  a  weapon 
with  which  to  overthrow  the  ruler  of  that 
country.    Was  that  American? 

That  in  this  work  of  promotion  truth  was 
suppressed  or  distorted  and  untruths  were  de- 
liberately concocted. 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        47 

That  widespread  brigandage,  robbery,  loot 
and  rape  were  fostered  and  the  facts  of  mur- 
der and  pillage  metamorphosed  into  the  pleas- 
ing fiction  of  "constitutionalism/' 

That  the  United  States  consuls  in  Mexico, 
simply  commercial  agents,  were  used  by  the 
Secretary  of  State  as  agents  of  information 
and  propaganda  for  the  Mexican  rebels.  Was 
that  American  fair  play? 

That  American  lives  and  property  w^ere  de- 
stroyed as  a  result  of  the  encouragement  of 
Mexican  disorder  and  that  because  responsi- 
bility rested  on  his  bandit  allies  the  Secretary 
of  State  belittled  the  loss  or  viewed  it  "with 
complacency/'    Was  that  American? 

That  the  Secretary  of  State  knew  that 
Pancho  Villa  deliberately  murdered  the  Eng- 
lishman, Benton;  that  he  lied  in  detail  about 
the  killing;  that  he  disposed  of  millions  of  dol- 
lars' worth  of  stolen  cattle  and  cotton  in  this 
country,  and,  knowing  all  this  and  infinitely 
more  of  the  man's  crimes,  he  had  a  clerk  in  the 
State  Department  prepare  a  laudatory  biog- 
raphy of  the  bandit. 

That  he  sent  a  telegram  to  a  Chicago  friend 
emphasizing  the  point  that  some  of  the  Amer- 
ican refugees  to  protect  whom  Huerta  was  do- 
ing everything  humanly  possible  "might  be 
executed,"  when  he  had  information  that  they 
were  safe.    Was  that  playing  straight? 


48        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

That  he  used  the  well-intentioned  mediators 
of  Argentina,  Brazil  and  Chile  as  a  catspaw 
to  help  Villa  on  his  way  to  sack  Mexico  City. 

That  through  a  State  Department  agent, 
Carothers,  he  advised,  directed  and  instigated 
Villa  in  his  bloody  career. 

That  he  maintained  intimate  relations  with 
the  rebel  junta  in  Washington  and  that  when 
a  Mexican  lawyer,  Bonales  Sandoval,  ap- 
proached Villa  in  the  interests  of  Felix  Diaz, 
the  junta  wired  to  Villa  that  "Washington 
would  view  with  satisfaction  the  execution  of 
Sandoval.'' 

That  he  consistently  suppressed  facts  unfa- 
vorable to  the  pretentions  of  the  rebels.  Was 
that  fair  play? 

That  as  Secretary  of  State  he  was  virtually 
an  agent  of  a  Mexican  revolution,  planned,  fos- 
tered and  financed  in  the  United  States,  which 
has  brought  Mexico  to  the  verge  of  ruin  and 
cost  thousands  of  lives. 

If  such  a  man  should  get  a  peace  prize  under 
any  circumstances  it  would  be  putting  a  pre- 
mium on  underhanded  war  and  hypocritical 
pretension.  ^        ^  _  j 


BRYAN'S  FOREIGN  POLICY. 

The  Spoil  System 

Department  of  State,  Washington, 

August  20,  1913. 
Hon.  Walker  W.  Vick, 

Santo  Domingo,  D.  R. 

My  Dear  Mr.  Vick:  Now  that  you  have 
arrived  and  are  acquainting  yourself  with  the 
situation,  can  you  let  me  know  what  positions 
you  have  at  your  disposal  with  which  to  re- 
ward deserving  Democrats?  Whenever  you 
desire  a  suggestion  from  me  in  regard  to  a  man 
for  any  place  there,  call  on  me. 

You  have  had  enough  experience  in  politics 
to  know  how  valuable  workers  are  when  the 
campaign  is  on  and  how  difficult  it  is  to  find 
suitable  rewards  for  all  the  deserving.  I  do 
not  know  to  what  extent  a  knowledge  of  Span- 
ish is  necessary  for  employees.  Let  me  know 
what  is  required,  together  with  the  salary,  and 
when  appointments  are  likely  to  be  made. 

Sullivan  will  be  down  before  long  and  you 
and  he  together  ought  to  be  able  to  bring  about 
such  reforms  as  may  be  necessary  there.  You 
will  find  Sullivan  a  strong,  courageous,  reliable 
fellow.  The  more  I  have  seen  of  him  the  bet- 
ter satisfied  I  am  that  he  will  fit  into  the  place 
there  and  do  what  is  necessary  to  be  done. 

W.  J.  BRYAN. 


VILLA'S  TACTICAL  BLUNDER. 

The  unspeakable  Villa  prides  himself  on  be- 
ing the  friend  and  ally  of  President  Wilson 
and  the  instrument  with  which  the  latter  hopes 
to  overthrow  Huerta.  But  Villa  is  a  blunder- 
ing ruffian  whose  regard  for  human  life  is  so 
small  that  he  loses  sight  of  his  own  interests. 
He  is  continually  bringing  embarrassment  to 
President  Wilson  through  his  ignorance  and 
native  brutality.  This  most  recent  outrage 
laid  at  Villa's  door  is  serious.  Had  William  S. 
Benton  been  an  American  citizen  his  death 
would  have  been  a  mere  incident — regrettable, 
of  course,  but  without  diplomatic  significance. 
But  Benton  happened  to  be  a  subject  of  Great 
Britain  and  the  customary  "aggressive  atti- 
tude" of  Great  Britain  in  "pressing  for  repara- 
tion where  her  subjects  have  been  wronged" 
calls  for  something  more  than  renewed  assur- 
ance of  "watchful  waiting." 

*  *  *  Villa  kills  with  little  or  no  provoca- 
tion, and  impudently  tells  Americans  that 
when  he  orders  somebody  to  be  shot  it  is  "no- 
body's business"  but  his  own.  Yet  Villa  is  the 
man  upon  whom  President  Wilson  has  pinned 
his  hope.     It  appears  that  in  all  this  terrible 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO         51 

Mexican  lawlessness  and  slaughter  the  Wash- 
ington administration  has  but  a  single  definite 
purpose — to  oust  Huerta.  It  is  a  stubborn  and 
unreasonable  obsession  based  on  the  fact  that 
Huerta  refused  to  abdicate  when  called  upon 
to  do  so.  From  the  day  that  Huerta  defied 
President  Wilson  there  has  been  but  one  as- 
pect of  the  case,  so  far  as  the  general  public  in 
America  could  see,  and  that  was  the  firm  de- 
termination of  President  Wilson  to  force  him 
out. 

If  the  murder  of  William  S.  Benton  results 
in  an  awakening  of  our  own  government  to  a 
change  of  policy  toward  Mexico,  it  will  have 
accomplished  more  than  the  sacrifice  of  scores 
of  lives  of  Americans  heretofore,  in  that  re- 
public. We  have  assumed  a  kind  of  unofiicial 
protectorate  over  Mexico.  We  have,  in  effect, 
assured  other  nations  that  we  will  afford  ade- 
quate protection  for  their  citizens.  As  long  as 
only  Americans'  suffered  in  Mexico  foreign 
governments  made  no  protests.  But  now  that 
an  Englishman  has  been  killed,  in  the  simple 
defense  of  his  property  against  destruction  by 
Villa's  soldiers,  the  United  States  government 
is  inclined  to  think  that  the  incident  warrants 
attention. — Kansas  City  "J^^^^^l-" 


THE  MEXICAN  PEOPLE. 

William  Lemke 

•  The  question  naturally  suggests  itself,  how 
could  such  a  murderer  as  Villa  get  a  following 
sufficient  to  overthrow  a  government  of  fifteen 
million  people?  The  answer  is,  that  Villa  did 
not  overthrow  the  Mexican  government.  But 
Villa  assisted  and  financed  by  American  oil  in- 
terests— elevated,  romanced  and  paraded  in 
the  public  press,  and  backed  up  by  the  Wilson 
administration,  did  overthrow  it.  Our  Presi- 
dent allowed  him  arms  and  ammunition,  but 
denied  them  to  the  Mexican  government.  He 
berated  and  financially  crippled  that  govern- 
ment, and  finally  landed  the  marines  at  Vera 
Cruz  in  behalf  of  Villa's  interests,  and  Villa's 
interests  were  the  interests  of  certain  Ameri- 
can oil  kings. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Mexico's  fifteen 
million  population  is  less  than  ten  per  cent 
white.  There  are  some  seventy-eight  different 
Indian  tribes,  with  many  different  languages 
and  customs.  Of  the  fifteen  million,  forty  per 
cent  are  pure  Indian,  and  fifty  per  cent  mix- 
tures of  various  degrees. 

I  do  not  wish  to  do  an  injustice  to  the  Mexi- 
can people.     I  have  a  higher  regard  for  some 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO         53 

of  her  Indians  than  I  have  for  our  government 
officials,  who  assisted  Villa.  The  Mexicans  are 
not  all  of  the  Villa  and  Zapata  type.  After 
three  years  of  turmoil,  less  than  two  hundred 
thousand  out  of  fifteen  million  are  in  arms. 
The  great  majority  of  Mexicans  are  non-re- 
sistant. Outside  of  a  few  Indian  tribes  and 
individuals,  the  Mexicans  are  altogether  too 
docile  and  submissive.  Their  patient  suffering 
without  resistance  makes  such  monsters  as 
Villa  and  Zapata  possible. 

Our  Indian  lived  in  a  wigwam — the  Mexican 
Indian  lives  in  a  hut  built  of  adobe,  poles,  or 
bamboo,  thatched  with  palm  leaves.  He  owns 
a  few  cattle,  goats  or  sheep,  some  chickens  and 
occasionally  a  pig  or  two,  while  a  burro  fur- 
nishes him  with  means  of  transportation.  He 
cultivates  a  few  acres  of  corn  and  beans  and 
knows  how  to  live  within  his  means.  I  had 
seen  him  in  rags,  but  before  the  land  was 
cursed  by  Villa  and  Zapata,  I  had  never  seen 
him  hungry. 

If  we  think  of  government  in  connection 
with  the  Mexican  people,  we  must  think  of  gov- 
ernment in  connection  with  our  own  Indian. 
How  have  we  governed  him?  In  spite  of  our 
constitution  and  Declaration  of  Independence, 
we  have  governed  him  with  the  bayonet.    We 


54         CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

have  not  given  him  the  right  of  citizenship,  nor 
the  right  of  suffrage — we  have  killed  him  in- 
stead. President  Wilson  talks  of  self-govern- 
ment among  the  Mexican  Indians,  but  has  he 
given  the  Porto  Ricans,  the  Filipinos  or  the 
Hawaiians  the  right  of  self-government — does 
he  allov^  them  to  elect  their  own  officials?  No, 
he  appoints  "deserving  Democrats"  looking 
for  a  job.  He  has  grown  maudlin  over  the  con- 
ditions of  the  Mexican  Indian,  but  has  rcT 
mained  silent  over  the  fact  that,  during  the 
past  two  years,  scores  of  our  Indians  starved 
to  death  on  the  Standing  Rock  Reservation  of 
the  Dakotas.  The  Waters-Pierce  Oil  Com- 
pany has  not  had  occasion  to  press-romance 
these  Indians — so  they  escaped  the  President's 
notice.  The  Rev.  Aaron  McGaffey  Beede  tried 
in  vain  to  get  the  President's  sympathetic  ear. 
The  Waters-Pierce  Oil  Company,  in  order 
to  distract  the  attention  of  the  American  peo- 
ple from  the  real  cause  and  source  of  the  revo- 
lutions in  Mexico,  declared,  through  its  subsi- 
dized press,  that  the  Mexicans  were  fighting 
for  land.  They  knew  that  the  American  peo- 
ple were  ignorant  of  the  real  conditions  in 
Mexico,  and  that  their  sympathies  could  be 
easily  aroused.  We  are  always  ready  to  sym- 
pathize with  the  unfortunate  in  a  foreign  land, 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        55 

but  forget  all  about  them  at  home.  How  about 
President  Wilson's  army  of  unemployed — do 
they  all  own  land?  But  let  us  pass  on  lest  we 
embarrass  the  President.  He  too,  intimated 
that  the  Mexicans  were  fighting  for  land,  and 
that  they  had  been  oppressed  for  generations. 

Yet  the  President  knows  that  the  Mexicans 
that  are  in  arms  are  not  the  tillers  of  the  soil — 
he  knows  that  Villa  and  Zapata  never  cultivat- 
ed anything  but  crime.  He  knows  that  these 
same  leaders  and  their  followers  have  robbed 
the  sons  of  toil,  ravished  their  women  and  car- 
ried away  their  daughters — that  they  are  not 
fighting  for  land,  but  for  loot  and  lust.  The 
President  has  this  information  on  file,  in  the 
State  Department. 

There  is  evidence  on  file  in  the  State  Depart- 
ment showing  that  the  Waters-Pierce  Oil 
Company  has  been  the  instigator  of  the  revolu- 
tions in  Mexico.  Letters  to  the  same  eflfect, 
purporting  to  be  photographic  copies,  have  ap- 
peared in  the  New  York  Herald  and  other 
papers.  The  names  of  President  Wilson  and 
Secretary  Bryan  appear  in  these  letters,  and 
Mr.  Lind,  the  President's  confidential  agent, 
is  represented  in  these  letters  as  advising  the 
rebels  how  to  get  around  the  embargo  by  sub- 


56        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

terfuge  during  the  mediation  proceedings,  and 
as  assuring  them  that  this  subterfuge  would 
have  the  President's  approval. 

While  there  has  been  a  struggle  between  an 
American  and  an  English  Oil  Company  for  the 
possession  of  the  Mexican  oil  fields,  there  has 
not  been  a  struggle  for  land.  The  Mexican 
can  buy  or  lease  land  at  such  a  low  figure  and 
on  such  easy  terms  that  it  would  be  foolish  for 
him  to  fight  for  it.  Many  of  the  thousands 
of  Americans,  that  our  government  has  helped 
to  rob,  located  in  Mexico  because  land  is  cheap- 
er and  more  productive  there  than  in  our  own 
country. 

There  have  been  abuses  in  the  Mexican  land 
system,  but  has  our  own  system  been  perfect? 
The  same  conditions  exist  today  in  Porto  Rico, 
in  the  Philippine  and  Hawaiian  Islands  as  do 
in  Mexico.  The  great  majority  of  people  in 
these  islands  own  no  land — they  are  poor  and 
ragged.  They  are  paid  about  twenty-five  cents 
a  day  for  their  labor.  These  islands  are  part 
of  the  United  States.  Charity  begins  at  home. 
What  has  the  President  done  for  these  people? 
Again,  a  few  individuals  own  all  of  the  mines, 
railroads  and  oil  fields  in  the  United  States. 
These  are  all  sources  of  production  as  well  as 
land.  Why  does  the  President  not  attempt  to 
give  these  to  the  poor  people? 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO         57 

There  is  room  for  reform — there  has  been 
graft  in  Mexico,  but  all  the  graft  in  the  last 
thirty-five  years  in  Mexico  does  not  equal 
that  of  one  or  two  individuals  in  New  York  or 
Chicago.  Is  Secretary  Bryan's  search  for  jobs 
for  "deserving  Democrats"  not  in  itself  politi- 
cal corruption  and  graft — is  it  not  a  bartering 
of  public  offices  to  political  henchmen?  Is  the 
integrity  of  the  nation  secure  under  such  a  sys- 
tem? With  this  as  an  example,  and  our  own 
President  writing  personal  letters  endorsing 
Roger  Sullivan  of  Chicago  and  others  for  the 
United  States  Senate,  just  because  they  be- 
longed to  his  party,  we  certainly  were  in  no  po- 
sition to  use  "moral  suasion"  on  Mexico. 
There  have  been  wrongs  in  Mexico — the  la- 
borer has  not  always  received  full  justice,  but 
before  our  President  destroyed  the  Mexican 
government,  it  was  impossible  to  find  outrages 
equal  to  those  perpetrated  in  the  mining  re- 
gions of  Colorado,  West  Virginia  and  Michi- 
gan. What  did  our  President  do  in  these 
cases?  He  first  consulted  with  John  D.  Rocke- 
feller and  his  associates,  and  then  sent  the 
United  States  troops  to  the  Colorado  mines. 
It  would  seem  that  he  should  have  been  the  last 
person  to  throw  the  stone,  and  yet  he  was 
clamoring  loudest  to  throw  the  first. 


THE  CITIZENS  OF  EL  PASO  PROTEST. 

El  Paso,  Texas,  Feb.  20th,  1914. 
Senator  A.  B.  Fall, 

Washington,  D.  C. 
At  an  indignation  meeting  here  tonight,  at- 
tended by  two  thousand  people,  and  hundreds 
unable  to  get  into  the  buildings,  a  preamble 
and  resolution  was  unanimously  and  enthus- 
iastically adopted,  copy  of  which  has  been 
wired  to  the  President  and  sent  out  through 
the  Associated  Press  to  all  the  world.  Feel- 
ing very  bitter  over  the  brutal  murder  of  Ben- 
ton. *  *  * 


Resolutions  Adopted 

Whereas,  Mr.  William  S.  Benton,  a  highly 
respected  and  honored  citizen  of  the  State  of 
Chihuahua,  and  subject  of  Great  Britain,  was 
brutally  murdered  and  assassinated  at  Juarez, 
Mexico,  by  Francisco  Villa,  we,  the  citizens  of 
El  Paso,  Texas,  and  refugees  from  Mexico,  at 
an  indigation  meeting  held  in  El  Paso,  Febru- 
ary 20th,  1914,  wishing  to  protest  most  em- 
phatically against  the  cruel  and  violent  treat- 
ment which  has  been  accorded  foreigners  dur- 
ing the  last  three  years  of  revolution  in  that 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        59 

country,  beg  to  submit  to  the  world  and  the 
American  people,  the  following  brief  state- 
ment of  facts: 

The  cold-blooded  and  heartless  assassination 
of  William  S.  Benton,  without  any  cause  what- 
ever other  than  the  fact  that  he  went  to  Juarez 
to  protest  against  the  confiscation  of  his  prop- 
erty, the  Los  Remedios  ranch  in  northern  Mex- 
ico, which  has  been  repeatedly  looted,  is  but 
another  crime  to  be  added  to  the  hundreds  that 
have  already  been  committed  against  all  for- 
eigners living  in  Mexico,  who  have  not  been 
driven  from  their  homes,  their  property  de- 
stroyed; in  many  cases  women  have  been  out- 
raged and  foreigners  murdered  in  cold  blood, 
and  for  no  other  reason  than  on  account  of 
their  nationality. 

We  believe  that  the  State  Department  at 
Washington  has  persistently  suppressed  facts 
concerning  the  true  conditions  in  Mexico,  and 
endeavored  through  inspired  newspaper  arti- 
cles and  by  other  means  to  mislead  the  Ameri- 
can people,  and  form  public  opinion  for  polit- 
ical purposes  in  support  of  a  policy  that  is  ruin- 
ous to  all  foreign  interests  in  Mexico  and  the 
Mexican  people  themselves. 

In  support  of  the  statement  we  would  call 
attention  to  a  recent  article  in  the  New  York 
World  which  purported  to  be  a  semi-official 


60        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

interview  coming  from  the  Secretary  of  State's 
office,  and  which  stated  that  while  a  great 
many  Americans  had  lost  their  lives  in  Mexico, 
not  one  had  been  murdered  solely  on  account 
of  his  nationality;  this  statement  we  know  to 
be  absolutely  false,  and  we  believe  there  are  re- 
ports on  file  in  the  State  Department  from 
their  own  consuls  to  the  contrary.  We  recall 
in  the  last  few  months  such  cases  as  the  assas- 
sination of  Mr.  Burton,  at  Santa  Rosalia,  Mr. 
Hayes  and  Mr.  Thomas,  at  Madera,  and  Mr. 
Brooks  in  northern  Chihuahua,  and  in  every 
one  of  these  cases  they  were  brutally  murdered 
for  no  other  reason  than  that  they  were  Amer- 
ican citizens. 

Some  months  ago  the  State  Department  of- 
ficially declared  in  one  of  its  messages  to  Mex- 
ico that  it  would  hold  the  Mexican  leaders  per- 
Stonally  responsible  for  outrages  committed 
against  the  American  citizens.  At  the  present 
moment  our  government  is  harboring  Gen. 
Ynez  Salazar,  who  has  an  unbroken  record  ever 
since  he  took  the  field  in  Mexico  of  outrages 
committed  against  our  citizens.  There  are 
many  citizens  of  this  city  who  were  cruelly  and 
brutally  treated  by  this  man,  many  who  have 
been  held  for  ransom  and  at  least  one,  Mr. 
Fountain,  who  was  shot  by  his  order,  and  thus 
far  he  has  been  immune  from  all  punishment 
by  our  government. 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        61 

At  the  present  moment  Maximo  Castillo, 
who  for  many  months  has  been  at  the  head  of 
an  outlaw  band  in  northern  Mexico,  holding 
our  citizens  for  ransom  and  perpetrating  all 
kinds  of  outrages,  whose  band  recently  burned 
alive  between  fifty  and  sixty  passengers  in  the 
Cumbre  tunnel  on  the  Northwestern  railroad, 
is  being  given  an  asylum  and  protection  by  our 
government. 

We  submit  these  facts  as  evidence  that  our 
government  is,  through  a  weak  and  vacillating 
policy,  encouraging  these  lawless  leaders  to 
commit  all  kinds  of  outrages  against  foreign- 
ers, and  doing  a  great  injustice  to  our  own 
people,  resulting  in  a  loss  of  hundreds  of  mil- 
lions of  dollars  of  foreign  capital,  the  murder 
of  many  of  our  citizens,  the  raping  of  American 
women,  and  ruination  of  Mexico  itself. 

The  career  of  Francisco  Villa,  a  man  who 
has  been  an  outlaw  and  a  murderer  for  many 
years,  and  who  is  now  wielding  an  arbitrary 
and  despotic  reign  of  terror  in  Northern  Mex- 
ico, is  more  cruel  and  barbarous  in  his  methods 
than  any  tyrant  in  the  world's  history.  It  is  a 
fact  that  he  has  treated  with  contempt  the  rep- 
resentatives of  nations,  and  that  he  does  not 
hesitate  to  put  a  man  to  death  for  the  slightest 
cause  and  for  in  any  way  incurring  his  displeas- 
ure.   We  believe  it  a  disgrace  to  our  govern- 


62        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

ment  and  the  American  people  to  tolerate  such 
a  man,  much  less  to  give  him  moral  support; 
Therefore,  be  it 

Resolved,  that  this  message  be  sent  to  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  the  British  Am- 
bassador at  Washington,  to  our  United  States 
Senators,  and  those  of  New  Mexico,  with  the 
request  that  it  be  read  into  the  Congressional 
Record,  and  we  apply  to  them  and  to  all  our 
representatives  in  both  branches  of  Congress 
to  adopt  a  resolution  to  compel  the  State  De- 
partment to  transmit  to  Congress  its  records 
pertaining  to  the  outrages  committed  against 
Americans  and  foreigners  in  Mexico,  and  to 
take  such  action  as  will  give  our  people  the 
protection  guaranteed  under  their  constitu- 
tional rights  and  maintain  the  honor  and  pres- 
tige of  our  country  in  the  eyes  of  the  world. 
We  apply  to  you  to  make  known  the  facts  to 
the  American  people  and  to  see  that  our  citi- 
zens who  are  living  in  Mexico  and  have  in- 
vested their  money  there  in  good  faith  are 
given  the  protection  justly  due  them. 

GEORGE  CURRY,  Chairman, 
Ex-Governor  of  New  Mexico. 


SPEECH  BY  CONGRESSMAN  AINEY. 

Delivered  in  the  House 

This  resolution  was  presented  because  of  in- 
formation coming  from  Mexico  disclosing,  if 
true,  a  condition  there  existing  involving  the 
rights  and  safety  of  American  citizens  so  hor- 
rible and  unspeakable  in  detail  as  to  shock  the 
world.  The  walls  of  civilized  warfare  were 
broken  down  and  neither  the  lives  nor  sex  of 
noncombatants  were  spared  by  the  ignorant, 
brutal  and  lustful  looters,  constituting  the 
misnamed  constitutionalist  army  of  Gen.  Villa. 

It  seeped  through  to  the  public's  ear  that 
outrage  after  outrage  upon  these  American 
citizens  had  been  reported  by  our  consular 
representatives  in  Mexico  to  the  State  Depart- 
ment at  Washington;  there,  after  feeble  and 
ineffective  protests,  to  be  pigeonholed  and  to 
gather  dust  while  the  administration  watched 
and  waited. 

The  President,  exerting  the  pressure  of  his 
high  position,  has  asked  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  to  surrender  its  right  of  inde- 
pendent judgment;  to  reverse  the  policy  of  a 
great  Nation  already  worked  into  law;  to  re- 
pudiate the  platform  declaration  of  his  own 


64        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

and  other  political  parties,  and  to  do  so  in  the 
face  of  his  own  strongly  stated  pre-election 
utterance. 

He  asks  the  members  of  this  Congress  to 
reverse  themselves  without  a  fact  being 
divulged  or  a  reason  presented  for  such  a  re- 
markable request  other  than  the  vague  and 
disquieting  suggestion  of  international  com- 
plications of  grave  importance  and  nearer  con- 
sequence. So  grave  and  important  and  of 
nearer  consequence  are  these  international 
matters  that  the  membership  of  this  House 
must  no  longer  think  or  judge  for  themselves, 
but  are  called  lipon  to  abandon  principles  and 
position  heretofore  taken  and  advocated,  be- 
cause an  extreme  condition  has  arisen  in  inter- 
national affairs  requiring  this  surrender  of 
brain  and  heart  and  mind  and  plan. 

The  tolls  speech  of  the  President  created 
great  anxiety  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  of  this 
country.  It  said  too  much  or  too  little.  It 
led  one  irresistibly  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
Mexican  policy  of  the  President  has  not  borne 
the  full  fruitage  he  expects  for  it,  but  that 
complications  have  arisen  possibly  involving 
Mexico's  relations  with  Germany  and  Japan 
requiring  us  to  have  the  moral  support  of  Eng- 
land, in  payment  for  which  the  American  peo- 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        65 

pie  are  asked  to  repeal  the  toll  provision 
exempting  American  ships  engaged  in  coast- 
wise trade. 

Whatever  may  be  the  Administration's  rea- 
sons, they  should  not  be  hidden  in  a  corner. 
This  Nation  can  not  support  an  unknown  as 
against  a  known  policy.  When  the  officially 
ascertained  facts  are  withheld  from  them,  the 
public  will  be  forced  to  form  their  conclusions 
from  unofficial  sources. 

Starting  with  a  false  premise  which  has  led 
him  to  run  counter  to  approved  diplomatic 
precedents  in  refusing  to  recognize  the  de 
facto  government  of  Gen.  Huerta  and  in  mak- 
ing demands  so  drastic  in  character  and  con- 
trary to  the  announced  and  long  standing 
policy  of  noninterference  of  this  Government 
as  to  be  in  themselves  under  the  law  of  nations 
acts  of  war,  the  President  has  found  himself 
unsupported  by  a  single  nation  other  than  the 
negative  support  which  may  be  implied  by  the 
obedience  of  three  South  American  republics 
to  the  request  of  the  United  States  to  withhold 
for  the  present  their  recognition  of  Gen. 
Huerta.     *     *     * 

If  the  gentleman  refers  to  the  papers  of  to- 
day, the  dispatches  which  were  no  doubt  in- 
spired by  those  supporting  Gen.  Villa,  and  in- 


66        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

fluenced  largely  from  the  Hibbs  Building  in 
Washington,  I  frankly  say  I  do  not  give  cre- 
dence to  all  such  statements.  I  believe  even 
today,  handicapped  as  he  has  been  by  reason  of 
the  violation  of  the  principles  of  neutrality  and 
recognition  which  have  heretofore  led  this 
country  to  act.  Gen.  Huerta  is  better  qualified 
to  bring  peace  in  Mexico  than  any  other  Mex- 
ican in  sight.     *     *     * 

The  gentleman  misunderstood  me  if  he 
thought  I  said  they  were  written  in  the  Hibbs 
Building.  I  suggested  to  the  gentleman  that 
they  were  undoubtedly  inspired  from  the 
Hibbs  Building.  If  the  gentleman  will  look  at 
the  papers  he  will  find  they  are  not  Associated 
Press  dispatches.  Giving  all  credence  to  the 
reporter,  the  reporter  has  to  get  his  informa- 
tion from  inspired  sources  in  Mexico,  from  the 
interests  supporting  Villa;  and  I  would  like  to 
suggest  to  the  gentleman  that  the  purpose  of 
my  resolution,  which  the  Foreign  Affairs  Com- 
mittee has  not  seen  fit  to  report  favorably,  un- 
der a  suggestion  which,  I  assume,  comes  from 
the  administration  that  it  be  not  so  reported, 
has  deprived  us,  and  the  gentleman  as  well  as 
myself,  of  the  opportunity  of  knowing  the  de- 
tails of  conditions  in  Mexico  as  the  representa- 
tives of  the  American  people  in  this  Congress 
are  entitled  to  know  them.     *     *     * 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        67 

Villa  neither  reads  nor  writes,  except  as  in 
jail  he  learned  to  write  his  first  name,  "Francis- 
co." To  those  who  know  him  as  a  vulgar,  ig- 
norant, and  brutal  specimen  of  humanity  the 
high-sounding  phrases  contained  in  dispatches 
purporting  to  repeat  his  words  carry  their  own 
refutation. 

An  effort  to  depict  him  as  a  hero,  driven  to 
the  hills  by  great  wrongs  inflicted  upon  him, 
has  failed  in  the  light  of  truth.  The  glory 
with  which  an  inspired  press  sought  to  clothe 
him  has  been  stripped  away  by  the  Benton  and 
other  gory  incidents  of  his  career,  and  he 
stands  before  the  world  as  a  hideous  monster, 
gloating  over  the  bodies  of  his  helpless  and 
quivering  victims ;  a  man  who  kills  for  the  love 
of  killing,  whose  armored  heart  appeals  for 
sympathy  never  reach;  a  man  who  has  no  pa- 
triotic sentiments,  who  has  stood  for  lawless- 
ness rather  than  for  order;  a  man  whose  love 
of  war  is  not  inspired  by  love  of  liberty  nor 
love  of  country,  but  longing  for  loot.  Every 
general  of  the  constitutionalist  arrny,  with  the 
possible  technical  and  nominal  exception  of 
Villa,  was  in  pillaging  rebellion  against  Mad- 
ero.     *     *     * 

Villa  belongs  to  the  hills.  Peace  has  no 
charms  for  him.  Against  a  strong  and  reso- 
lute force  he  would  not  tarry  a  moment,  for  he 


68        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

is  as  cowardly  as  he  is  brutal,  and  he  has  the 
weakness  and  fear  of  a  blustering  bully.  The 
success  of  Villa  would  turn  Mexico  over  to  a 
reign  of  terror.     *     *     * 

At  Durango,  in  spite  of  the  protest  of  the 
American  consul,  the  city  was  given  over  by 
the  constitutionalist  general  to  the  unre- 
strained license  of  his  soldiers  for  24  hours  be- 
cause it  was  said  to  be  the  only  way  of  paying 
them.  Little  girls  scarcely  10  years  of  age 
and  women  did  not  escape  and  now  hang  their 
heads  in  awful  shame.  American  women  were 
gathered  in  MacDonald's  Institute,  where 
their  husbands  barricaded  the  building  and 
fought  to  preserve  them  from  the  rapacity  of 
the  rebel  soldiers. 

Specific  instances,  the  details  too  revolting 
to  be  repeated,  are,  I  am  informed,  contained 
in  the  consular  reports  in  the  archives  of  the 
State  Department,  revealing  conditions  which 
affect  the  rights  of  American  citizens,  their 
wives,  children,  and  property. 

The  cry  of  suffering  coming  up  from  Mexico 
uttered  by  American  citizens,  whose  lives 
have  been  sacrificed,  whose  wives  and  daugh- 
ters have  been  ravished,  whose  property  has 
been  confiscated,  has  not  reached  the  sympa- 
thetic and  responsive  ear  of  the  Chief  Execu- 

tive         'K       'K       H^ 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        69 

How  to  turn  vast  acres  into  small  farms  and 
inspire  the  populace  with  a  desire  to  own  and 
till  them  is  a  problem  which  has  confronted 
Mexico  for  a  hundred  years.  The  people 
must  acquire  the  farming  desire  before  any 
project  will  be  successful.  To  get  a  piece  of 
land  for  the  purpose  of  selling  it  and  not  to 
cultivate  it  is  the  mental  height  to  which  the 
masses  have  thus  far  attained.*     *     * 

The  position  adopted  by  the  executive  that 
Americans  should  leave  Mexico  upon  his 
warning,  or  failing  to  abandon  their  homes  and 
property  no  particular  duty  or  responsibility 
was  owing  them  by  the  Government,  is 
abhorrent  to  one  of  patriotic  senses. 

The  rights  of  American  citizens  are  as  deep- 
seated  as  the  rock  upon  which  their  claim  for 
liberty  rests.  It  is  as  fixed  as  our  national 
heritage.  It  follows  them  in  every  country 
and  every  clime.  Neither  the  despotic  act  of 
foreign  government  nor  the  edict  of  their  own 
chief  executive  can  legally  or  morally  despoil 
them  of  it.  The  direction  of  the  President 
to  Americans  to  abandon  their  all  and  leave 
Mexico  was  as  unwarranted  as  it  was  un- 
American.  It  worked  a  confiscation  of  their 
property  as  effectually  as  any  act  of  brigan- 
dage perpetrated  by  the  unrestrained  marau- 
ders of  Mexico.     *     *     * 


70        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

The  danger  of  war  comes  not  from  those 
who  seek  to  know  the  truth  but  from  those 
who  would  conceal  it.     *     *     * 

A  nation  cannot  long  endure  except  it  be 
supported  by  the  patriotism  of  its  people. 
Patriotism  cannot  be  engendered  except  as  it 
is  inspired  by  a  sense  of  protecting  strength 
and  support  extended  its  citizens.  The  pride 
of  American  citizenship  has  been  that  the 
American  flag  embraced  in  its  protecting  folds 
the  humblest  citizen  in  every  land  he  chanced 
to  be.  When  a  nation  is  too  busy  with  aca- 
demic questions  or  too  indifferent  to  hear  and 
heed  the  supplication  of  her  helpless  citizens 
it  will  have  reached  the  first  milestone  of  dis- 
integration in  its  downward  career,  and  when 
the  flag  of  her  citizenship  fails  to  afford  pro- 
tection then  will  come  loss  of  faith  in  and 
respect  for  her  institutions;  and  without  faith 
and  respect,  love  of  country  soon  ceases  and 
the  end  is  near.     *     *     * 


AMERICAN  REFUGEES. 

William  Lemke 

After  our  President  formed  his  alliance  with 
Villa,  he  ordered  all  the  Americans  to  aban- 
don their  property  and  leave  Mexico.  We  do 
not  know  whether  this  was  at  the  request  of 
Villa  or  the  Waters-Pierce  Oil  Company,  but 
we  do  know  that  it  was  just  what  the  Waters- 
Pierce  Oil  Company  and  the  President's  bandit 
ally  wanted.  It  lessened  the  necessity  of  mur- 
dering Americans,  and  thus  tended  to  avoid 
complications  with  the  American  people. 
There  was  no  danger  of  a  misunderstanding 
with  the  President,  because  in  his  dealings  with 
Mexico,  he  did  not  consider  the  lives  and  prop- 
erty of  American  citizens.  The  President's 
proclamation  just  as  effectually  confiscated  the 
property  of  the  American  citizens  in  Mexico 
as  the  decree  of  any  court  could  have.  It  gave 
millions  of  dollars  worth  of  property  to  the 
rebels  with  which  to  fight  the  battles  of  the 
Waters-Pierce  Oil  Company,  and  provided 
them  with  the  means  to  enrich  a  few  million- 
aire firearms  and  ammunition  companies, 
when  later  the  President  raised  the  embargo. 

The  President  and  his  Secretary  did  not 
hesitate  to  add  insult  to  injury  by  compelling 


72        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

these  American  citizens,  made  refugees  and 
the  victims  of  bandits  by  his  proclamation,  to 
take  steerage  passage,  and  in  many  cases 
crowded  men,  women  and  children  under  a 
blazing  tropical  sun,  into  filthy,  unhealthy  cat- 
tle boats.  Hundreds  of  these  innocent  victims 
have  not,  and  never  will  fully  regain  their 
health  as  a  result  of  this  ordeal.  There  is  not 
one  word  in  the  Congressional  Record  author- 
izing or  suggesting  to  the  President  to  treat 
American  citizens  in  this  dishonorable  and 
brutal  manner.  Not  satisfied  with  this,  the 
President  went  further  and  even  compelled 
these  innocent  victims  of  his  proclamation  to 
sign  promissory  notes  for  the  amount  of  the 
steerage  passage.  These  notes  bore  eight  per 
cent  interest  after  maturity  and  were  made 
payable  to  the  order  of  William  Jennings 
Bryan. 

Benjamin  C.  Martin,  of  Garfield,  New  Mex- 
ico, was  one  of  these  unfortunate  American  ref- 
ugees. He  was  robbed  of  everything,  even 
part  of  his  clothing,  and  then  bound  hand  and 
foot  by  the  rebels — the  tools  of  the  Waters- 
Pierce  Oil  Company — and  left  to  die.  He  re- 
mained in  this  condition  for  twelve  hours, 
when  a  Mexican  woman  discovered  him,  cut 
the  ropes  and  liberated  him.  He  walked  eighty- 
seven  miles  to  the  nearest  railroad  that  had 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        73 

not  been  destroyed.  He  then  notified  the  Mex- 
ican government  of  what  had  happened  to 
him,  and  President  Huerta  furnished  him  with 
free  transportation  and  food  to  Mexico  City. 
From  there  he  made  his  way  to  Vera  Cruz, 
where  he  applied  to  the  American  Consul  for 
transportation  to  Galveston.  Steerage  pass- 
age was  granted  after  he  had  been  closely 
questioned  as  to  his  financial  condition  and 
after  he  had  signed  the  remarkable  docu- 
ment, which  is  in  the  form  of  a  promissory 
note,  a  correct  translation  of  which  is  given 
below.  The  translation  was  made  from  a 
photographic  copy  of  the  original,  by  Prof. 
H.  R.  Brush,  Professor  of  Spanish  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  North  Dakota. 

Note  for  Twenty-Six  Dollars  American  Gold 

I  owe  and  will  pay,  on  the  15th  day  of  May, 
1914,  to  William  J.  Bryan,  Secretary  of  State 
of  the  United  States  of  North  America,  or  to 
his  order,  the  sum  of  twenty-six  dollars  Amer- 
ican money,  for  value  received  in  cash  to  my 
complete  satisfaction  in  quality  of  a  mercantile 
loan  to  be  devoted  integrally  to  acts  of  com- 
merce, and  as  this  sum  is  actually  in  my  power, 
I  renounce  the  right  of  opposing  the  acception 
of  money  not  handed  over. 


74        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

I  will  make  the  payment  in  American  money 
current  of  the  weight  and  standard  marked  by 
the  monetary  law  in  force  or  in  bank  notes  ex- 
cluding any  other  species  of  money  or  paper, 
even  though  its  acceptance  be  compulsory  by 
law,  leaving  to  Mr.  William  J.  Bryan  the  priv- 
ilege of  selecting  the  sort  of  money  in  which 
payment  is  to  be  made  in  case  the  weight  of 
actual  standard  of  that  agreed  upon  should 
vary. 

If  the  sum  mentioned  in  this  document 
should  not  be  punctually  discharged  at  matu- 
rity, I  will  after  that  date  pay  on  it  the  interest 
accruing  from  the  date  of  maturity  until  com* 
pletely  discharged,  at  the  rate  of  eight  per  cent 
annually,  making  hereby  formal  renunciation 
of  the  prescription  and  of  section  1  of  article 
1044  of  the  statute  of  commerce  which  estab- 
lishes it  and  agreeing  to  reimburse  Mr.  Bryan 
for  all  the  cost  which  he  may  incur,  both  judi- 
cial and  extrajudicial,  in  order  to  recover  the 
face  of  this  note  and  of  the  proceeds  accruing, 
even  though  they  should  be  for  more  than 
five  years. 

It  is  expressly  agreed  that  the  credit  pro- 
ceeding from  this  note  is  by  its  nature  mercan- 
tile, and  shall  not  in  any  case  or  for  any  reason 
be  subject  to  any  discharges  or  delays,  to 
which  effect  I  renounce  the  provisions  of  arti- 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        75 

cles  988,  989,  991  and  994  of  the  statute  of  com- 
merce which  relates  to  business  dealings  be- 
tween bankrupts  and  their  creditors  and  to  the 
effect  of  said  agreements. 

(Signed)  Benjamin  C.  Martin. 

Vera  Cruz,  Ver.,  March  19,  1914. 

This  is  not  dollar  diplomacy — it  is  eight  per 
cent  diplomacy.  When  President  Huerta  of 
Mexico  learned  that  our  government  supplied 
only  steerage  passage  for  its  citizens,  he  or- 
dered that  funds  be  given  to  the  refugees  to  en- 
able them  to  travel  first-class.  He  said:  "We 
desire  that  the  Americans  who  leave  Mexico 
carry  with  them  the  remembrance  of  the  com- 
fort and  safety  which  have  characterized  their 
stay  in  this  country,  rather  than  the  possible 
penury  and  poverty  of  the  place  whither  they 
are  going.''  And  so  the  Mexican  Government, 
in  several  hundred  cases,  paid  the  difference 
between  steerage  and  first  class  passage  to 
American  refugees.  Compare  this  generosity 
of  President  Huerta  with  the  niggardly  per- 
formance of  President  Wilson  and  Secretary 
Bryan. 

Shylock  never  demanded  his  pound  of  flesh 
in  a  more  shameful  document  than  did  the 
author  of  the  "New  Freedom''  and  the  author 
of  the  "Prince  of  Peace"  in  the  above  note. 
The  words,  "I  renounce  the  right  of  opposing 


76        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

the  acception  of  money  not  handed  over,"  was 
undoubtedly  put  into  this  note  because  the  ad- 
ministration knew  that  twenty-six  dollars  for 
steerage  passage  from  Vera  Cruz  to  Galveston 
was  extortionate.  Before  the  railroads  in  Mex- 
ico were  destroyed  the  rate  for  first  class  pass- 
age from  Minneapolis  to  Mexico  City  and  re- 
turn was  fifty-six  dollars.  The  distance  from 
Minneapolis  to  Mexico  City  and  return  via  El 
Paso  is  five  thousand  two  hundred  and 
ninety-four  miles.  The  distance  from  Vera 
Cruz  to  Galveston  is  but  six  hundred 
and  eighty  miles,  and  yet  our  government  per- 
mitted the  steamship  companies  to  charge 
twenty-six  dollars  for  steerage  passage  one 
way,  and  forty  dollars  for  first  class  passage 
one  way,  to  the  American  refugees,  whom  the 
President  had  ordered  to  leave  Mexico.  Our 
President  and  his  Secretary  paid  these  extor- 
tionate rates  with  government  money  without 
a  protest. 


COWARDLY   DESERTION   OF  AMERI- 
CAN CITIZENS. 

Speech  by  Congressman  Mondell. 

The  gentleman  from  Texas  wants  to  follow 
the  administration.  I  wonder  if  he  desires  to 
be  understood  as  following  the  administration 
in  what  occurred  at  Tampico.  Tampico  was 
attacked  by  the  rebels,  and  several  hundred 
Americans  were  gathered  in  a  hotel  and  felt 
reasonably  safe  because  in  the'  neighboring 
river,  but  a  short  distance  away,  lay  three 
American  gunboats,  with  their  guns  shotted, 
their  decks  lined  with  sand  bags,  and  the 
marines  with  rapid  firing  guns  alert  behind 
them.  Our  forces  had  just  taken  Vera  Cruz, 
and  the  news  had  been  flashed  to  Tampico 
that  the  invader  had  landed;  that  he  was  shoot- 
ing Mexicans.  Meanwhile  the  rebel  forces 
were  thundering  at  the  gates,  and  so  the  cry 
went  round,  "They  have  invaded  our  land  at 
Vera  Cruz  and  shot  down  our  people;  they 
have  furnished  the  guns  with  which  the  rebels 
are  pounding  at  our  doors,"  and  out  of  this 
grew  an  anti-American  demonstration.  The 
mobs  gathered  around  the  hotel  where  these 
Americans — men,  women  and  little  children — 


78        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

were  gathered,  depending  upon  the  marines 
and  gunboats  for  protection.  And  then  what 
happened?  While  the  mobs  howled  and  bat- 
tered at  the  doors,  while  every  horrid  and  vile 
threat  that  those  savage  and  angry  Mexicans 
could  conjure  up  were  being  shouted  at  these 
imprisoned  refugees  and  strong  men  stormed 
in  their  impotent  wrath,  and  women — Ameri- 
can wolnen — and  children  cowed  in  terror, 
those  American  gunboats,  on  command  of  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  three  times  repeated 
over  the  protest  of  the  American  admiral, 
weighed  anchor  and  steamed  out  to  sea,  leav- 
ing two  thousand  Americans — men,  women 
and  children — defenseless  in  the  face  of  that 
howling  mob,  inflamed  to  madness  because  we 
were  attacking  their  countrymen  at  Vera  Cruz, 
and  had  allowed  the  shipment  of  arms  to  the 
rebels  who  were  attacking  them  and  threaten- 
ing their  lives  and  property.  Fortunately, 
there  was  a  German  gunboat  and  a  German 
commander  at  hand,  and  when  our  own  brave 
men  had  been  ordered  away  the  German  com- 
mander ordered  the  mob  dispersed,  which  was 
done.  This  German  commander  then  sent  his 
men  to  escort  the  American  men,  women  and 
children  to  his  boat.  Fortunately,  there  was 
an  English  ship  and  an  English  officer  at  hand 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        79 

to  assist  in  the  rescue  of  our  people.  *  *  * 
When  our  citizens,  two  thousand  of  them, 
were  rescued  by  German  and  English  officers 
and  sailors  and  taken  out  to  sea  in  German  and 
English  boats  they  found  seventeen  American 
dreadnaughts  lying  at  anchor — two  thousand 
Americans,  stalwart  men,  fair  women,  little 
children,  in  danger  of  death,  torture,  and  dis- 
honor— seventeen  of  the  finest  ships  afloat,  ten 
miles  away,  three  gunboats,  manned  and  shot- 
ted, weighing  anchor  and  sailing  out  to  sea, 
leaving  them  to  their  fate.  Does  the  gentle- 
man from  Texas  follow  the  administration  in 
that  incident?     *     *     * 

Above  all  things  I  am  thankful,  and  from  the 
information  I  have  I  am  satisfied,  that  no  man 
wearing  the  American  uniform  was  responsible 
for  that  desertion.  Three  different  times,  so  I 
am  told,  the  officer  in  command  protested  the 
orders  sent  him,  and  only  obeyed  when  those 
orders  were  made  final  and  imperative  from 
Washington.  How  he  must  have  felt,  how  the 
brave  men  under  him  must  have  felt,  as  they 
sailed  away  can  be  readily  imagined.  This 
Tampico  incident  is  so  astounding,  so  utterly 
contrary  to  all  American  traditions,  that  some 
of  our  people  have  found  it  difficult  to  credit  it, 
much  less  to  understand  it.     But  when  one 


80        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

views  it  in  the  light  of  the  policy  which  the 
administration  has  steadily  pursued  toward  the 
Mexican  situation,  it  is  simple  enough. 

The  one  end  and  aim  and  only  purpose  of 
the  administration's  policy  has  evidently  been 
the  downfall  and  elimination  of  Huerta.  The 
taking  of  Vera  Cruz  had  so  inflamed  the  Mexi- 
can mind,  military  and  civilian,  constitution- 
alist and  federal,  that  there  was  a  strong  prob- 
ability that  the  contending  forces  at  Tampico 
might  join  against  the  common  enemy;  that 
the  rebels  might  cease  their  assault  upon  Tam- 
pico and  thereby  disarrange  the  administra- 
tion's policy  of  playing  one  force  against  the 
other  as  a  means  of  the  elimination  of  Huerta. 
Forgotten  or  ignored  was  the  duty  of  protect- 
ing the  lives  and  the  honor  of  our  people  in  the 
consuming  desire  to  carry  out  the  administra- 
tion plan.  And  so  the  flags  were  dipped,  the 
anchors  weighed,  and  while  the  mobs  howled, 
hurled  their  insults  and  battered  at  the  doors, 
our  people  were  abandoned  to  their  fate.  If 
there  is  any  other  explanation  than  this  of  the 
Tampico  incident,  let  some  one  give  it.  If  this 
was  not  a  cold-blooded  abandonment  in  carry- 
ing out  the  policy  of  the  administration  to 
bring  about  the  downfall  of  the  Federal  Gov- 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        81 

ernment  in  Mexico  without  regard  to  loss  of 
life  or  property,  I  should  like  to  know  what 
excuse  there  was  for  it. 

I  shall  insert  in  the  record  as  part  of  my  re- 
marks a  statement  handed  to  me  by  John  I. 
Newell,  an  honest  American  citizen,  who  was 
at  Tampico  at  the  time  the  incident  I  have  re- 
ferred to  occurred.  The  statement  is  as  fol- 
lows: ''*  *  *  Monday,  April  20th,  in  the  eve- 
ning, Admiral  Mayo  received  instructions  to 
withdraw  all  gunboats  from  the  river.  *  *  * 
The  three  gunboats,  the  Dolphin,  Chester  and 
Des  Moines,  in  the  river  had  been  stripped  for 
action.  *  *  *  Admiral  Mayo  protested 
against  the  removal  of  the  gunboats  at  least 
three  times,  and  I  have  every  reason  to  believe 
he  stated  that  his  withdrawing  the  boats  would 
subject  hundreds  and  thousands  of  Americans 
to  extreme  danger.  I  know  that  the  American 
consul  sent  a  long  message  of  protest  stating 
the  extreme  danger  that  would  arise  to  all 
Americans.  These  messages  did  not  avail  and 
at  nine-thirty  o'clock,  April  21st,  the  last  of 
the  gunboats  left  the  river.  The  Americans 
immediately  felt  themselves  to  be  in  extreme 
danger.  *  *  *  At  four  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon the  Americans  for  the  first  time  became 
aware   of   the   taking   of  Vera   Cruz.      They 


82        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

learned  this  through  posters  put  out  by  the 
Mexican  authorities  saying  that  the  American 
invader  had  come,  and  had  landed  at  Vera 
Cruz,  and  calling  on  all  patriotic  Mexicans  to 
rally  for  the  defense  of  the  city.     *     *     >i^ 

The  American  consul  had  not  been  notified 
of  the  taking  of  Vera  Cruz  and  was  not  in 
communication  with  our  battleships,  which 
were  now  located  nine  miles  away  in  the  gulf. 
At  four-thirty  mobs  began  to  form,  incited  by 
speeches  made  by  leading  Mexican  lawyers  and 
doctors.  They  were  incited  to  kill  all  Ameri- 
cans and  to  tear  down  the  American  flags. 
These  mobs  kept  increasing  in  size,  and  three 
different  attacks  were  made  on  some  buildings 
occupied  by  Americans.  A  hundred  and  fifty 
American  men,  women  and  children  were 
guarded  at  the  Southern  Hotel.  Determined 
efforts  were  made  to  batter  down  the  doors  of 
the  hotel.  It  was  shot  into,  windows  were 
broken,  and  no  relief  was  given  until  the  Ger- 
man commainder  of  the  German  gunboat  Dres- 
den sent  word  to  General  Zaragosa,  of  the 
Federal  forces,  ordering  him  to  disperse  the 
mob,  and  if  it  was  not  done  he  would  land  Ger- 
man marines.  This  German  commander  sent 
two  of  his  officers  to  the  Southern  Hotel  and 
to  other  places  to  take  the  American  women 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        83 

and  children  to  his  boats.  This  was  about  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning  of  April  22nd.  This 
was  done  voluntarily  on  the  part  of  the  Ger- 
man commander  without  any  communication 
whatever  from  the  American  fleet.  Earlier  in 
the  evening  the  Consulate  tried  to  get  into 
communication  with  Admiral  Mayo  by  wire- 
less from  the  English  boat,  but  the  English 
commander  refused  the  request,  stating  that 
Mexico  and  the  United  States  were  at  war  and 
England  was  neutral.  *  *  *  During  April 
22nd  and  23rd  over  two  thousand  five  hundred 
Americans  were  taken  but  of  Tampico  by  boats 
flying  the  German  and  English  flags  and  in 
charge  of  German  and  English  officers.  The 
English  officer  on  one  of  the  boats  stated  to 
the  Americans  in  a  speech  that  it  was  not  his 
duty  to  do  this,  but  that  he  did  so  in  as  much  as 
our  own  country  had  deserted  us  and  humanity- 
demanded  that  he  should  take  care  of  us.  *  *  * 
The  feeling  of  every  American  coming  from 
Tampico  is  that  he  was  deserted  by  his  coun- 
try. He  knew  that  he  was  in  no  danger  as  long 
as  the  quarrel  was  between  the  Mexicans,  but 
after  the  United  States  landed  at  Vera  Cruz 
the  hatred  of  the  Federals  against  all  Ameri- 
cans became  intense,  and  the  protection  was 
removed  from  us  at  a  time  when  it  was  at  its 
height  without  any  notice  to  us." 


84        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

In  Volumn  51,  part  8,  of  the  Congressional 
Record  of  the  63d  Congress,  2d  session,  on 
page  8132,  there  is  a  statement  by  three  hun- 
dred and  seventy-two  of  the  Tampico  refugees 
in  regard  to  the  same  infamous  desertion  of 
American  citizens  by  the  Wilson  administra- 
tion, which  in  substance  is  the  same  as  that 
given  above. 


A  NATION'S  DUTY. 

William  Lemke 

A  nation  owes  the  same  duty  to  its  citizens 
that  a  father  owes  to  his  children.  It  is  just  as 
much  the  duty  of  a  nation  to  protect  its  citizens 
from  insult,  injury  and  destruction  wherever 
they  may  be,  as  long  as  they  have  a  right  to 
be  there,  as  it  is  for  a  father  to  protect  his  chil- 
dren from  insult,  injury  and  destruction 
wherever  they  may  be,  as  long  as  they  have  a 
right  to  be  there.  I  arn  willing  to  defend  my 
nation — I  am  willing  to  lay  down  my  life  in 
defense  of  the  stars  and  stripes,  but  I  shall  ex- 
pect that  in  return  for  this  devotion  that  that 
nation  and  that  flag  will  protect  me  and  my 
children  wherever  we  may  be,  as  long  as  we 
have  a  right  to  be  there.  The  nation  that  does 
not  protect  its  protectors  cannot  long  endure. 
No  nation  on  earth  is  great  enough  to  ignore 
the  appeals  for  help  of  its  citizens  whether  at 
home  or  abroad.  As  there  are  times  when  an 
individual  must  be  firm,  or  even  fight,  to  pre- 
serve his  manhood,  so  there  are  times  when  a 
nation  must  be  firm,  or  even  fight,  to  preserve 
its  nationalism. 

The  reason  for  all  organized  government 
and  taxation  is  that,  as  a  group,  people  are 


86        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

more  powerful  and  have  more  protection,  than 
as  individuals.  This  is  true  as  long  as  those 
in  charge  of  a  government  perform  their  sacred 
duty  and  impartially  protect  the  lives  and 
property  of  all  of  its  citizens  wherever  they 
may  be.  Patriotism  is  the  feeling  that  you  are 
somebody.  It  is  the  feeling  that  you  belong  to 
a  nation  that  is  not  only  powerful,  but  that  is 
interested  in  your  welfare.  The  contract  be- 
tween the  individual  and  his  nation  is  recip- 
rocal. He  tacitly  agrees  to  protect  the  nation 
in  time  of  danger  even  unto  death,  and  the 
nation  tacitly  agrees  to  protect  him  in  his  life 
and  property  wherever  he  may  be.  This  is  the 
compact  between  the  nation  and  the  individual. 
None  but  a  coward  will  deny  it.  Without  this 
feeling  of  security  and  reciprocity,  there  can  "^ 
be  no  true  patriotism  on  the  part  of  the  in- 
dividual— there  is  no  nationalism. 

The  Americans  in  Mexico  had  a  right  to 
be  there.  They  had  violated  no  law.  They 
had  been  invited  by  the  Mexican  government 
and  had  been  promised  the  most  absolute  pro- 
tection. They  had  been  advised  by  William 
Jennings  Bryan  to  go  into  Mexico  under  the 
Diaz  administration,  invest  their  capital,  and 
seek  work  there. 

The  vast  majority  of  Americans  in  Mexico 
are  of  the  middle  class — they  belong  to  the 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        87 

same  sturdy  class  that  settled  in  Texas.  They 
are  the  forerunners  of  civilization.  They  are, 
as  ex-President  De  la  Bara  of  Mexico  has  so 
ably  said,  the  educators  and  civilizers  of 
Mexico.  Shame  on  the  cowards  at  Wash- 
ington and  elsewhere  that  would  brand 
these  sturdy  and  hardy  people  as  exploiters 
and  desert  them.  They  are  in  Mexico  to  make 
their  homes,  and  to  assist  in  the  onward  march 
of  civilization  of  Latin-America. 

If  Great  Britain  had  followed  President  Wil- 
son's Mexican  policy,  then  our  forefathers 
would  have  been  told  to  leave  this  continent 
when  the  Indians  became  hostile.  If  Presi- 
dent Madison  had  followed  the  Wilson  Mex- 
ican policy,  then  the  Americans  would  have 
been  requested  to  stay  off  the  seas  in  1812. 
If  the  Wilson  Mexican  policy  had  been  fol- 
lowed, then  Texas,  New  Mexico,  California 
and  Arizona  would  not  be  a  part  of  the  United 
States  today.  If  this  same  policy  had  been 
followed,  then  the  man  who  said,  "If  anyone 
hauls  down  the  American  flag,  shoot  him  on 
the  spot,"  would  perhaps  have  been  jailed  or 
reprimanded — and  the  man  who  said,  "Mil- 
lions for  defense,  but  not  one  cent  for  tribute," 
would  perhaps  have  been  compelled  to  revise 
his  statement  to,  "Millions  for  tribute,  but  not 


88        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

one  cent  for  defense,"  or  else  he  would  have 
been  discharged,  and  all  the  force  of  the  ad- 
ministration brought  to  bear  to  discredit  and 
dishonor  him,  as  was  done  with  Ambassador 
Wilson. 


WE  APPEAL  TO  THE  PRESIDENT. 

By  Col.  George  Harvey. 

''The  large  thing  to  do  is  the  only  thing  we 
can  afford  to  do — a  voluntary  withdrawal  from 
a  position  everywhere  questioned  and  misun- 
derstood. We  ought  to  reverse  our  action 
without  raising  the  question  whether  we  were 
right  or  wrong,  and  so  once  more  deserve  our 
reputation  for  generosity  and  the  redemption 
of  every  obligation  without  quibble  or  hesita- 
tion." 

Those  words,  Mr.  President,  spoken  by  you 
as  the  head  of  the  nation  to  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  upon  the  first  day  of  your  second 
year  in  office  were  more  than  worthy,  more 
than  courageous;  they  were  noble.  They 
breathed  the  sense  of  national  honor;  they 
were  shot  through  with  patriotic  feeling;  they 
evinced  the  power  of  personal  greatness  to  ac- 
knowledge and  repair  a  fault.  And  they  will 
serve  the  purpose  for  which  they  were  uttered 
— never  fear! 

Pending  the  accomplishment  of  that  great 
triumph  which  is  to  be  yours,  may  we  not  ask 
you  to  perform  the  more  pressing  duty  of  turn- 
ing your   eyes   upon   the   stricken   people   of 


90        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

bleeding?  Mexico,  and  consider — consider  in 
candor  and  with  deep  solicitude  which  we 
know  you  feel — whether  you  may  not  apply 
those  words  to  them.  Is  not  our  attitude  to- 
ward them  also  "everywhere  questioned  and 
misunderstood"?  We  think  and  presently  shall 
try  to  convince  your  mind  that  it  is.  If  we 
shall  succeed  in  that  endeavor,  is  not  "the  large 
thing  to  do  the  only  thing  we  can  afford  to  do" 
— a  reversal  of  our  action  "without  raising  the 
question  whether  we  were  right  or  wrong,  and 
so  once  more  deserve  our  reputation  for  gener- 
osity and  the  redemption  of  every  obligation 
without  quibble  or  hesitation"? 

Four  months  have  elapsed  since  we  raised 
the  questions: 

What  legal  or  moral  right  has  a  President 
of  the  United  States  to  say  who  shall  or  shall 
not  be  President  of  Mexico?  and 

Did  not  President  Wilson  imbed  himself  in 
a  practically  inextricable  position  when  he  de- 
manded the  retirement  of  Huerta?  and  the 
only  answers  forthcoming  are  to  be  found  in 
a  consensus  of  the  world's  opinion  and  in  a 
hopelessly  tangled  diplomatic  situation  sur- 
charged with  peril.  But  no !  That  is  not  strict- 
ly accurate.  You  answered  the  first  question, 
Mr.  President,  when  you  recognized  the  Hu- 
erta of  Peru,  and  you  answered  the  second 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        91 

when  you  urged  so  impressively  upon  the  Con- 
gress, as  a  primary  reason  for  repudiating  a 
pledge  of  your  own  party  platform  the  neces- 
sity of  mollifying  foreign  powers.  *  *  * 

Never  before  to  our  knowledge,  while  their 
countries  were  at  peace  and  resolved  to  con- 
tinue in  amicable  relationship,  has  one  Presi- 
dent declared  war  upon  another  President.  Yet 
that  is  what  you  did  without  a  quiver  of  hesita- 
tion. And  you  did  not  stop  there.  You  cer- 
tainly struck  deep  and  hard  in  those  days  early 
in  November  when  the  following  declaration 
was  served  upon  Huerta  as  coming  from  the 
President  of  the  United  States :  *  *  * 

That  unless  Huerta,  voluntarily  and  on  his 
own  initiative,  retires  at  once  from  power  and 
abandons  every  idea  of  controlling  the  organ- 
ization of  the  government  and  the  conduct  of 
negotiations,  the  First  Magistrate  will  find 
himself  under  the  necessity  of  intervening  by 
means  of  an  ultimatum,  and  if  this  is  not  ac- 
cepted he  will  be  obliged  to  propose  to  the  Con- 
gress of  his  country  the  adoption  of  practical 
measures  of  a  most  serious  nature.  *  *  * 

And  when  the  old  Indian  coolly  ignored  this 
demand  you  did  not  shrink  from  inviting  the 
criticism  of  your  own  countrymen  by  lifting 
the  embargo  upon  guns  which,  like  those  in  the 
Philippines,  may  at  no  distant  day  be  turned 


92        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

upon  our  own  soldiers.  No,  Mr.  President,  it 
is  not  from  lack  of  energy  or  resolution  that 
your  attempt  to  apply  political  eugenics  to 
Mexico  in  a  schoolmasterful  way  has  failed.  It 
is  from  the  fatal  defect  within  the  policy  itself 
— the  futile  threat  which,  as  we  declared  in 
November,  "instead  of  eliminating  Huerta 
from  power,  riveted  him  in  his  place,  there  to 
remain,  in  all  probability,  until  he  shall  be  ex- 
pelled by  force  !of  arms."  This  judgment, 
based  upon  certain  logic,  has  now  found  gen- 
eral acceptance,  and  it  is  to  that  most  impor- 
tant fact,  Mr.  President,  that  we  would  direct 
your  attention. 

No  writer  has  made  it  so  clear  as  you  that 
"the  only  force"  that  can  control  a  President 
in  shaping  his  course  with  respect  to  large  mat- 
ters of  public  policy  is  "the  force  of  public 
opinion."  But  public  opinion  is  no  less  subject 
to  change  than  individual  judgment  and,  if  it 
is  to  be  accepted  as  a  true  guide,  it  must  be  ex- 
amined and  interpreted  at  frequent  intervals. 
When,  in  November,  we  urged  upon  you  man- 
ful reversal  of  a  policy  which  we  then  believed 
to  be  and  which  has  since  proved  to  have  been 
untenable,  we  did  not  assume  to  reflect  the 
common  view.  We  could  not  but  feel  that 
much  of  the  seeming  approval  was  no  more 
than  natural  and  praiseworthy  restraint;   but 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        93 

there  were  few  evidences  to  that  effect,  and 
you  were  quite  justified  in  assuming  that  your 
attitude  had  won  general  commendation.  The 
newspaper  press  in  particular  was  notably  in- 
sistent and  steadfast  in  support  of  your  deter- 
mination to  drive  Huerta  from  his  position  of 
authority.  But  is  it  so  now?  Let  us  mark  the 
indications  afforded  by  our  leading  journals. 

He    *    * 

The  extraordinary  character  of  this  galaxy 
of  editorial  and  individual  pronounce- 
ments is  its  unanimity.  There  may  have  ap- 
peared somewhere  a  word  of  approval  of 
"watchful  waiting''  since  the  embargo  was 
lifted,  but  if  so,  despite  our  painstaking  read- 
ing of  many  American  newspapers,  we  have 
not  seen  it — not  one  word.  *  *  * 

You  spoke,  Mr.  President,  in  your  latest 
message,  of  the  difficulties  which  you  are  now 
experiencing  in  dealing  with  foreign  govern- 
ments, especially  with  respect  to  "matters  of 
even  greater  delicacy  and  nearer  consequence" 
than  the  canal-tolls  dispute,  and  you  pleaded 
with  the  Congress  to  empower  you  to  adopt 
conciliatory  measures.  It  is  clear,  therefore, 
that  you  attach  particular  importance  to  for- 
eign public  opinion  at  this  crucial  time.  What, 
then,  is  the  consensus  of  that  judgment  upon 
your  Mexican  policy? 


94        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

The  most  consistent  friends  of  America 
among  the  public  journals  of  England  are  The 
London  "Times"  and  the  "Spectator."  Both 
have  deplored  from  the  beginning  your  refusal 
to  recognize  the  de  facto  government.  While 
hoping  for  the  best,  the  "Times"  still  cannot 
escape  the  conclusion  that  you  have  "assumed 
responsibilties  that  may  well  lead  to  armed 
intervention."     *     *     * 

The  conservative  "Morning  Post"  pronoun- 
ces your  position  "absolutely  unintelligible" 
and  possessing  "all  the  appearance  of  encour- 
agement to  anarchy,  civil  war,  and  murder  of 
foreign  residents  in  Mexico." 

What  to  do?  Why,  Mr.  President,  there  is 
but  one  thing  to  do.  There  never  has  been 
but  one  thing  to  do.  That  is  to  put  under  your 
feet  the  solid  precedent  that  was  established  by 
this  nation  at  the  beginning  of  its  career  and 
that  has  been  heeded  by  all  other  powers  in 
this  particular  instance:  Extend  to  the  de  facto 
government  of  Mexico  official  recognition.  We 
pass  no  criticism  upon  your  refusal  to  take  this 
logical  and  sensible  action  originally.  You 
erred,  of  course,  as  all  the  world  now  con- 
cludes, and  as  you  yourself  confessed  when  you 
acknowledged  the  validity  of  the  "usurping" 
governments  of  Peru  and  Haiti;  but  it  was  an 
excusable,  possibly  even  a  justifiable,  error  be- 
cause it  sprang  from  the  best  of  intentions. 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        95 

What  we  do  ask  is  that  you  do  not  persist  in 
a  course  which  leads  straightway  to  the  un- 
doing of  all  your  good  works,  through  the  cer- 
tain defeat  of  your  party  and  the  execration 
that  just  as  surely  will  be  visited  upon  yourself 
if,  as  a  consequence  of  sheer  obduracy,  this 
country  shall  be  dragged  into  a  hateful  war. 
It  may  or  may  not  be  a  correct  assumption  that 
Huerta,  unhampered,  could  have  pacified  his 
country,  but  there  is  and  can  be  absolutely  no 
question  that  you  deprived  him  of  the  means 
of  effective  striving. 

Confronted  at  the  outset  by  a  hostile  Con- 
gress such  as  he  well  knew  had  achieved  the 
downfall  of  Madero,  surrounded  by  a  cabinet 
of  intriguers,  refused  recognition  by  the 
United  States,  branded  rightfully  or  wrong- 
fully, but  without  adduced  evidence,  as  an  ac- 
cessory to  assassination,  deprived  of  the  oppor- 
tunity to  borrow  moneys  through  the  desire  of 
foreign  governments  to  curry  favor  with  the 
nation  which  is  now  more  commonly  than  be- 
fore referred  to  throughout  Latin  America  as 
"the  big  bully,"  cajoled,  threatened,  cut  off 
from  aid  wherever  possible,  while  simultane- 
ously the  hordes  of  opposing  bandits  and  des- 
peradoes were  being  supplied,  furtively  at  first 
and  then  openly,  with  arms  and  ammunition, 
and  now — at  the  end  of  thirteen  months — he  is 


96        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

conceded  to  be  more  strongly  intrenched  than 
ever!  It  is  an  amazing  personal  record,  Mr. 
President,  worthy  surely  of  admiration,  and 
remarkable  especially  for  the  consistent  dig- 
nity, courtesy,  and  consideration  exhibited  by 
the  old  Indian  himself  in  his  dealings  with  an 
administration  which  has  been — shall  we 
frankly  admit? — not  invariably  tactful  and  per- 
haps upon  occasion  slightly  dictatorial. 

It  is  not  too  late.  It  is  never  too  late  to  do 
the  right  thing.  Moreover,  the  change  in  con- 
ditions affords  you  full  warrant  for  reversing 
your  position.  While  you  had  faith  in  the  sin- 
cerity and  high  purpose  of  the  rebel  leaders, 
there  appeared  at  least  a  semblance  of  reason 
for  taking  their  part,  but  now  that  they  have 
dropped  the  mask  and  stand  revealed  in  their 
true  light  as  murdering  marauders,  their  last 
claim  upon  your  consideration  has  disap- 
peared. 

You  gave  them  their  chance,  at  great  risk  to 
your  own  reputation,  when  you  opened  the 
doors  for  the  delivery  of  arms,  and  they  have 
shown  their  appreciation  by  ignoring  your 
wishes,  flouting  your  authority,  and  making 
you  appear  before  the  world  as  a  virtual  ally  of 
a  dastardly  bandit.  While  Huerta  has  been 
earning  your  respect.  Villa  has  been  abusing 
your  confidence.     Clearly,  the  withdrawal  of 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        97 

aid  from  the  rebels  now  would  be  regarded 
everywhere  not  only  as  fully  justified,  but  as  a 
fitting  response  to  the  demands  of  humanity 
and  civilization. 

But  what,  you  may  ask,  is  to  be  gained  by 
recognizing  Huerta  at  this  late  day?  And  we 
answer,  everything.  He  may  not  be  able  under 
any  circumstances  to  pacify  Mexico,  but  all 
there  whose  lives  and  properties  are  at  stake 
agree  that  he  is  rightfully,  or  wrongfully,  Mex- 
ico's only  hope.  He  is  ours,  too,  and  yours,  be- 
cause he  has  come  to  be  the  only  force  capable 
of  maintaining  order  and  so  possibly  of  avert- 
ing the  dreaded  intervention  which  continu- 
ance of  the  existing  chaos  is  certain  in  time  to 
produce.  Practicability,  no  less  than  theory 
and  tradition,  calls  for  upholding  of  the  de 
facto  government. 

There  are  other  reasons,  Mr.  President, 
more  personal  to  yourself.  You  have  no  base 
now  from  which  to  act;  no  avenue  through 
which  to  communicate;  no  way  of  meeting 
the  just  demands  of  foreign  powers  except,  as 
in  the  case  of  England,  by  proffering  special 
favors.  And  you  are  under  suspicion.  The 
mere  fact  that  your  policy  is  ^^unintelligible" 
has  given  rise  to  a  growing  conviction,  espe- 
cially in  South  America,  as  evidenced  above, 
that  it  is  insincere  and  is  deliberately  designed 


98        CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

to  engender  war  and  conquest.  You  no  longer 
have  at  your  back  the  mighty  force  of  public 
opinion,  as  we  have  shown. 

Abroad,  as  you  must  realize,  the  common  at- 
titude toward  your  watchful  waiting  is  quite 
frankly  contemptuous;  at  home  it  is  one  of 
grave  doubt  and  grave  anxiety.  To  speak 
plainly,  Mr.  President,  the  feeling  is  growing 
stronger  daily  that  your  persistence  in  a  course 
which  in  common  with  everybody  else  you 
must  know  to  be  wrong,  is  attributable  to  no 
kind  of  reasoning  whatsoever,  but  to  your  own 
stubborn  pride.  For  your  own  sake,  then,  if 
for  no  other  cause,  it  is  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance that,  if  there  must  be  war,  it  shall  come 
as  an  inevitable  consequence,  as  demonstrably 
unpreventable  by  any  conceivable  means  and  in 
strict  conformity  with  the  customs  and  prece- 
dents fixed  by  international  usage. 

Is  it  not  clear,  Mr.  President,  that  this  condi- 
tion can  never  be  realized  until  the  only  gov- 
ernment, however  discreditable,  that  does  exist 
and  the  only  really  strong  man,  however  dis- 
reputable, who  has  appeared,  shall  have  been 
accorded  the  full  opportunity  which  so  many 
believe  he  could  utilize  even  now  with  ulti- 
mate effectiveness?  It  is  the  only  way,  sir, 
the  only  way  out,  the  only  way  to  save  Mexico, 
to  save  your  party,  and  to  save  yourself.    It  is. 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO        99 

too,  "the  large  thing  to  do/'  the  "only  thing" 
you  "can  afford  to  do''  to  escape  from  a  posi- 
tion "everywhere  questioned  and  misunder- 
stood." 

We  implore  you,  Mr.  President,  to  take  to 
heart  your  own  splendid  words,  "We  ought  to 
reverse  our  action  without  raising  the  question 
whether  we  were  right  or  wrong,"  and  then  do 
it  "without  quibble  or  hesitation"  and  win  for 
your  country  just  honor  and  for  yourself  the 
fine  renown  which  the  world  invariably  ac- 
cords a  noble  act  nobly  done. 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  INDIANAPOLIS 
SPEECH. 

William  Lemke 

In  his  Indianapolis  speech,  the  President 
said:  "Have  not  the  European  nations  taken 
as  long  as  they  wanted,  and  spilled  as  much 
blood  as  they  pleased  in  settling  their  affairs, 
and  shall  we  deny  that  right  to  Mexico,  be- 
cause she  is  weak?  No,  I  say."  These  words 
had  more  properly  come  from  the  lips  of  Villa 
or  Zapata,  for  the  success  of  whose  murderous 
career  the  President  is  responsible.  Horrible 
as  these  words  are,  they  fail  to  describe  the 
sea  of  blood  that  the  President  has  caused  to 
flow  in  Mexico  by  encouraging  and  materially 
assisting  these  monsters.  No,  the  President 
will  not  be  permitted  to  escape  his  responsibil- 
ity by  subterfuge.  He  did  interfere  in  Mexico, 
and  he  interfered  on  the  side  of  crime.  Did 
he  not  destroy  the  Mexican  government?  Did 
he  not  land  the  United  States  marines  at  Vera 
Cruz  for  the  express  purpose  of  ousting 
Huerta?  Did  he  not  raise  the  embargo  on 
arms  so  that  Villa  and  Zapata  could  get  more 
arms  and  ammunition  to  slaughter  the  inno- 
cent and  outrage  women?  Did  he  not  sup- 
press the  truth  in  regard  to  the  crimes  of  these 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       101 

criminals,  and  shelter  them  in  every  way  pos- 
sible? It  has  even  been  said  that  he  got  his 
Secretary  of  State  to  delegate  a  subordinate 
to  write  a  laudatory  biography  of  the  mur- 
derer, Villa,  and  was  only  stopped  from  ac- 
complishing his  purpose  by  Senator  Lodge 
reading  the  crimson  career  of  Villa  into  the 
Congressional  Record.  "False  face  must  hide 
what  the  false  heart  doth  know."  "Macbeth 
shall  sleep  no  more."  "Go  get  some  water  and 
wash  this  filthy  'Villa'  from  your  hands." 

President  Wilson  said  that  the  Mexicans 
must  be  allowed  to  spill  as  much  blood  as  they 
please,  and  I  suppose  that  he  would  also  say 
that  they  must  be  allowed  to  outrage  as  many 
women  as  they  please.  For  justification  of  this 
doctrine  he  refers  us  back  to  ancient  and  me- 
dieval Europe.  He  might  with  equal  propriety 
have  referred  us  back  to  the  cave  man,  or  to 
some  cannibal  tribe. 

I  had  believed  that  these  horrors  were  part 
of  the  distant  and  barbarous  past,  until  I  saw 
them  reenacted,  with  the  President's  assist- 
ance, in  Mexico.  I  believed,  and  still  believe, 
that  it  is  part  of  civilization  to  prevent  the  re- 
currence of  these  awful  things.  I  deny  that 
the  President,  in  this  speech,  voices  the  senti- 
ment of  the  American  people.     According  to 


102      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

the  President,  I  should  be  allowed  to  spill  the 
blood  of  my  brother,  if  it  pleased  me,  because 
in  the  remote  and  hazy  past,  Cain  arose  and 
slew  his  brother,  Abel. 

The  President  said  further:  "So  that  when 
some  great  dailies,  not  very  far  from  where  I 
am  temporarily  residing,  thundered  with  rising 
scorn  at  watchful  waiting,  Woodrow  sat  back 
in  his  chair  and  chuckled,  knowing  that  he 
laughs  best  who  laughs  last."  So  while  out  of 
Mexico  there  came  gruesome  pictures  of  hu- 
man beings  chained  together  in  groups,  soaked 
in  oil  and  burned  to  death,  "Woodrow  sat  back 
in  his  chair  and  chuckled."  While  Benton, 
Bach  and  hundreds  of  others  were  being  mur- 
dered, "Woodrow  sat  back  in  his  chair  and 
chuckled."  While,  Durango,  a  city  of  seventy- 
five  thousand,  was  being  drenched  in  blood  by 
the  Villa  hordes,  and  hundreds  of  women  were 
ravished,  while  scores  committed  suicide  to 
avoid  a  worse  fate,  "Woodrow  sat  back  in  his 
chair  and  chuckled,  knowing  that  he  laughs 
best  who  laughs  last." 

Nero  fiddled,  and  perhaps  "chuckled,"  while 
Rome  was  burning,  but  that  was  no  consola- 
tion to  the  victims  of  his  conflagration.  No, 
Woodrow,  it  was  not  a  question  with  the  inno- 
cent victims  of  your  particular  kind  of  "watch- 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       103 

ful  waiting*'  as  to  who  laughs  first  or  last,  or 
yet,  as  to  who  laughs  best.  Many  of  these  are 
dead,  while  what  is  worse,  others  bear  upon 
their  brow  the  stigma  of  shame — their  lives 
and  their  virtue,  unwillingly  and  against  their 
consent,  sacrificed  upon  the  Villa-Zapata  altar 
of  cruelty,  greed  and  lust.  "All  great  Nep- 
tune's ocean"  cannot  wash  away  the  blood  and 
dishonor  that  your  allies,  Villa  and  Zapata 
and  their  followers,  have  placed  upon  your 
policy  of  "watchful  waiting."  This  is  no 
chuckling  matter. 

The  President  talks  of  himself  in  the  third 
person — "Woodrow  sat  back  in  his  chair  and 
chuckled."  What  would  we  have  thought  of 
President  Lincoln,  if  during  the  civil  war,  he 
had  said,  "Abraham  sat  back  in  his  chair  and 
chuckled."  Some  time  ago  the  President  in- 
formed us  that  he  had  a  "one  track  mind,"  and 
I  presume  that  his  mind  runs  back  on  one  track 
to  the  days  of  Caesar,  when  the  innocent  and 
defenseless  were  made  prisoners  and  slaugh- 
tered, and  their  women  outraged  and  carried 
away  as  legitimate  prize.  "Have  not  the  Euro- 
pean nations  taken  as  long  as  they  wanted, 
and  spilled  as  much  blood  as  they  pleased  in 
settling  their  affairs,  and  shall  we  deny  that 
right  to  Mexico,  because  she  is  weak?    No,  I 


104      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

say."  In  the  face  of  this  remarkable  new  doc- 
trine of  the  President,  what  has  become  of  the 
commandment,  "Thou  shalt  not  kill." 

"Against  this  doctrine  I  raise  my  voice  in 
protest  before  the  tribunal  of  universal  jus- 
tice." I  appeal  from  the  President,  the  ser- 
vant, to  the  American  people,  his  master,  and 
demand  punishment  for  the  unspeakable  out- 
rages perpetrated  against  thirty  thousand 
Americans,  the  looting  of  their  homes  and  the 
profanation  of  their  bodies.  I  know  that  there 
is  enough  chivalry  and  manhood  left  in  Amer- 
ica, regardless  of  the  President,  to  uphold  wo- 
manhood and  to  rescue  her  from  the  degrada- 
tion and  desecration  to  which  she  has  been 
subjected  in  Mexico. 

If  the  President's  home  had  been  looted  by 
Villa  or  Zapata,  with  torch  and  dagger  in  hand, 
and  then  destroyed — if  he  had  been  tortured 
and  mutilated,  and  then  in  his  dying  condition 
compelled  to  witness  the  outraging  of  his 
daughters,  then  he  could  perhaps  realize  what 
we  thirty  thousand  Americans,  nearly  all  of 
whom  have  been  robbed,  many  of  whom  have 
had  some  friend  or  relative  murdered,  tortured, 
mutilated  or  outraged,  think  of  him  when  he 
says  that  those  demons  must  be  allowed  to  spill 
as  much  blood  as  they  please.    We  have  a  right 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       105 

to  interpret  the  President's  words  in  the  light 
of  conditions  as  they  exist,  and  as  he  knows 
them  to  exist. 

Woodrow !  "How  much  longer  are  you  go- 
ing to  abuse  our  patience  ?"  Do  you  know  that 
in  the  words  of  the  immortal  Lincoln,  "You 
can  fool  all  of  the  people  some  of  the  time,  and 
some  of  the  people  all  of  the  time,  but  you  can- 
not fool  all  of  the  people  all  of  the  time." 
Whether  you  wish  it  or  not,  your  name  will  go 
down  into  Mexican  history  linked  forever  with 
that  of  Villa — Wilson  and  Villa,  one  and  in- 
separable, known  to  fame  or  infamy  to  all  the 
ages  yet  to  come. 


AFFAIRS  IN  MEXICO. 

By  Senator  William  Alden  Smith 

***From  a  somewhat  intimate  knowledge  of 
the  historical  facts  and  upon  my  responsibility 
as  a  Senator  I  say  that  the  revolution  against 
Diaz  was  planned  and  perfected  and  stimulated 
and  encouraged  upon  the  soil  of  the  United 
States.  It  is  a  notorious  fact  that  three  men  in 
a  hotel  in  the  city  of  New  York  held  in  the  hol- 
low of  their  hands  the  fate  of  Mexico  while 
they  were  attempting  to  adjust  between  them- 
selves the  railroad  and  the  oil  interests  of  that 
country. 

While  under  oath,  Mr.  Sherburne  G.  Hop- 
kins, of  Washington,  told  a  committee  of  the 
Senate  that  he  was  the  counsel  of  the  Maderos, 
or  of  the  Madero  revolution,  and  at  the  same 
identical  moment  admitted  that  he  held  a  re- 
tainer as  the  counsel  of  a  great  American  oil 
company. 

After  President  Diaz  was  put  out  of  the 
capitol  of  Mexico,  and  Francisco  Madero  was 
put  in,  the  first  money  paid  out  of  the  Mexican 
treasury  was  fifty  thousand  dollars  to  this 
Washington  lawyer  for  services  to  the  revolu- 
tionary junta  in  this  capital.     *     *     * 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       107 

How  have  we  acted  with  reference  to  our 
neighbor  on  the  south?  Does  anybody  ques- 
tion that  the  loan  negotiated  by  the  Mexican 
government  in  Europe  was  defeated  by  our 
Government?  Let  my  associates  upon  the 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  say.  We 
have  sent  emissaries  directly  to  those  in  rebel- 
lion against  the  de  facto  government  of  Mex- 
ico; we  have  dealt  directly  with  the  revolution- 
ists or  constitutionalists  in  Mexico  in  open  re- 
bellion against  President  Huerta.     *     *     * 

Why  was  the  embargo  raised  upon  the 
exportation  of  arms  from  America,  so  that 
banditti  and  revolutionists  might  obtain  their 
powder  and  their  munitions  with  less  difficulty 
from  our  own  people?  *  *  *  j  have 
thought  that  the  least  respectable  thing  that 
our  Government  could  do  would  be  to  refrain 
from  encouraging  banditti  and  revolution  in  a 
friendly  state.     *     *     * 

I  assert,  without  any  hesitation  whatever, 
that  the  very  same  element  in  Mexico  which 
banded  together  to  overthrow  the  government 
of  President  Diaz,  which  instigated  and  fur- 
nished the  means  and  much  of  the  munitions 
for  President  Madero's  successful  revolution, 
are  the  men  who  have  engineered  the  Carranza 
and  Villa  movement.  Their  headquarters  are 
in  the  city  of  Washington;  their  offices  are  in 


108      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

the  Hibbs  building.  *  *  *  The  following 
were  here  in  person  during  the  summer:  Felix 
Sommerfield,  the  head  of  the  secret  service 
corps,  operating  with  Consul  Llorente  along 
the  Mexican  border,  who  claimed  that  there 
was  no  limit  to  the  expenditures  he  had  a  right 
to  make;  and  it  was  found,  without  any  diffi- 
culty whatever,  that  Mr.  Llorente,  consul,  had 
over  two  million  dollars  to  his  credit  in  the 
city  of  El  Paso  alone  with  which  he  was  to 
buy  arms  and  ammunition  and  create  propa- 
ganda in  favor  of  his  faction  of  the  Mexican 
people;  Mrs.  Francisco  Madero;  the  Madero 
brothers  coming  and  going;  Manuel  Perez  Ro- 
mero, broker  of  Mrs.  Madero,  Washington  rep- 
resentative of  the  rebels,  their  minister  of 
finance;  while  Mrs.  Madero's  brother  was  busy 
through  the  entire  summer  fulminating 
against  the  government  of  Mexico,  safely  and 
usually  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  *  *  * 
When  the  Mexican  revolution,  headed  by 
Francisco  I.  Madero  against  President  Diaz, 
broke  out,  the  Eagle  Oil  Company,  which  in- 
cludes the  Aguila  Oil  Company,  dealing  in  the 
refined  products  of  oil,  and  the  Pearson  oil  con- 
cessions belonging  to  Lord  Cowdray,  of  Eng- 
land, producing  crude  oil,  were  doing  their 
business  in  sharp  rivalry  with  the  Waters- 
Pierce  Oil  Company.     Mr.  Hopkins  says  they 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       109 

were  active  competitors.  At  that  time  the 
controlling  interest  and  stock  of  the  Waters- 
Pierce  Oil  Company  was  owned  by  the  Stan- 
dard Oil  Company.  According  to  the  witness, 
Mr.  Henry  Clay  Pierce,  president  of  the 
Waters-Pierce  Company,  "conceived  it  to  be 
imminently  proper  that  the  public  should  un- 
derstand how  Lord  Cowdray  got  these  conces- 
sions and  how  he  exercised  the  control  which 
he  had  over  the  Mexican  government,"  and 
witness  says  that  he  was  employed  by  Mr. 
Pierce  for  that  purpose.     *     *     * 

Mr.  Hopkins  says  that  his  employment  took 
place  in  the  city  of  Mexico.  He  further  says 
that  he  was  consulted  with  a  view  to  exposing 
the  graft  by  means  of  which  Lord  Cowdray 
had  attained  the  degree  of  influence  which  he 
wielded  with  the  Diaz  administration.  He 
says  also  that  he  was  at  that  time  the  adviser 
of  the  Madero  revolutionary  party  in  Wash- 
ington and  gave  it  his  advice  as  to  the  best 
manner  of  deposing  the  Diaz  government;  that 
he  was  employed  directly  by  Gustavo  Madero 
and  others,  and  that  he  "made  it  as  hot  as  he 
could  for  Lord  Cowdray  and  the  Eagle  Oil 
Company."  He  says  he  was  especially  called 
upon  to  advise  Mr.  Madero  regarding  railroad 
matters,  and,  in  fact,  says,  "I  was  the  legal  ad- 
viser of  the  revolutionary  party  in  Washing- 


110      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

ton  from  the  beginning  until  the  end/'  employ- 
ing men  for  work  in  the  secret  service  in  the 
United  States  and  doing  everything  to  assist 
in  creating  public  opinion  in  the  revolution 
against  President  Diaz;  and  that  he  v^as  called 
to  Mexico  immediately  after  the  fall  of  Juarez 
by  President  Madero  and  his  brother,  Gustavo 
Madero,  for  the  purpose  of  adjusting  certain 
large  outstanding  accounts  for  secret  service 
in  the  United  States  whom  witness  had  em- 
ployed. 

During  this  visit  to  Mexico,  Gustavo  Ma- 
dero was  paid  six  hundred  thousand  dollars, 
Mexican,  out  of  the  treasury  of  that  govern- 
ment for  revolutionary  expenses,  and  this 
money  was  carried  by  Madero  to  the  hotel 
where  Hopkins  was  stopping  and  deposited  in 
the  International  Banking  Corporation,  hav- 
ing a  branch  in  Washington  and  various  for- 
eign countries,  with  which  Hopkins  did  busi- 
ness, and  which  he  sometimes  represented.  Of 
this  fund  Mr.  Hopkins  was  paid  fifty  thousand 
dollars  in  gold  for  his  service  in  promoting 
the  revolutionary  cause  in  Mexico.     *     *     * 

Hopkins  says  that  he  was  interested  in  the 
railway  aspect  of  that  situation.  *  *  * 
That  he  and  Gustavo  Madero  thought  that  the 
old  directors  should  be  gotten  rid  of  as  expedi- 
tiously as  possible.     *     *     *     He  says  that 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       111 

the  course  outlined  with  reference  to  these 
railroads  by  Gustavo  Madero  and  himself  was 
known  to  Henry  Clay  Pierce,  who  "had  a  very 
vital  interest  in  the  management  of  the  Na- 
tional Railways,  and  was  both  a  bondholder 
and  stockholder."  *  *  *  Hopkins  first  be- 
came interested  in  changing  the  directory  of 
those  roads  through  Gustavo  Madero  about 
the  time  of  the  revolution,  and  the  matter  was 
discussed  at  length  by  Madero  and  Hopkins  in 
his  office  in  Washington.     *     *     * 

He  also  says  that  the  consolidation  of  the 
Mexican  Central  and  the  Mexican  Railways 
was  made  possible  through  Henry  Clay  Pierce, 
and  admits  that  when  Gustavo  Madero  took 
up  the  work  of  getting  rid  of  the  directory  of 
the  Mexican  Railways  that  the  railways  were 
prospering.  *  *  *  That  everybody  con- 
nected with  the  revolutionary  movement 
against  Diaz  shared  the  view  of  Gustavo  Ma- 
dero as  to  the  desirability  of  getting  control 
of  these  railways.  Hopkins  admits  that  he 
was  acting  both  for  Pierce  and  Madero,  who 
had  ideas  in  common.  That  he  went  down  to 
Mexico  to  bring  these  matters  to  the  attention 
of  the  Mexican  people  and  with  a  view  to 
bringing  about  just  what  has  taken  place. 
Hopkins  says  that  he  was  very  familiar  with 
the  whole  affair;  that  he  was  in  Washington 


112      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

when  the  battle  of  Juarez  occurred,  and  that 
just  prior  to  the  battle  of  Juarez  he  was  in  con- 
ference in  New  York  with  the  father  of  the 
late  President  Madero,  Mr.  Limantour,  the 
Minister  of  Finance  of  Mexico,  also  a  director 
in  the  Mexican  national  railways,  and  Dr. 
Francisco  Vasquez  Gomez  at  the  Hotel  Astor. 
That  the  attack  upon  Juarez  was  delayed  pend- 
ing this  conference,  "where  there  were  negoti- 
ations looking  to  a  compromise.'' 

Why,  Mr.  President,  is  it  conceivable  that 
three  men  meeting  in  the  Hotel  Astor  in  New 
York  should  hold  in  the  hollow  of  their  hands 
the  fate  of  seventeen  million  people  at  the 
south  of  us?  Is  it  conceivable  that  all  of  this 
dire  calamity,  the  loss  of  life,  the  murder,  the 
outrages  committed  upon  women  and  girls, 
the  destruction  of  millions  of  dollars'  worth  of 
property,  could  all  have  been  avoided  if  these 
three  archconspirators  had  been  able  to  agree 
upon  a  division  of  the  railroad  and  the  oil  inter- 
ests of  Mexico?  Yet  that  is  what  this  man 
says  under  oath.     *     *     h^ 

Hopkins  says  that  he  has  "had  a  good  deal 
to  do  with  revolutions,  also  in  maintaining 
constituted  government."  He  says  he  knew 
that  President  Zelaya  was  going  to  be  put  out 
of  the  presidency  of  Nicaragua  some  time  be- 
fore it  happened.    That  he  imparted  his  infor- 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       113 

mation  to  certain  people  in  Europe,  notably 
the  French  banker,  whom  he  had  approached 
for  a  loan  in  behalf  of  the  Mexican  revolution. 
He  said  he  knew  exactly  what  was  going  to 
happen.  When  asked  if  that  information  came 
directly  from  our  Government  he  said:  "I 
should  not  say  directly  from  our  Government; 
I  knew  what  was  going  to  happen  before  our 
Government  did,  and  stopped  Zelaya's  loan 
from  going  through." 

You  cannot  dismiss  with  a  wave  of  the  hand 
this  man  who  can  stop  a  loan  from  a  European 
banking  house  to  a  government  in  Central 
America.  You  cannot  dismiss  with  a  wave  of 
the  hand  a  man  whose  labors  were  sufficient 
to  call  for  a  personal  appropriation  out  of  the 
treasury  of  Mexico  amounting  to  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars.  This  man  is  an  acknowledged 
and  professional  revolutionary  authority;  has 
been  close  to  the  department  of  state,  and 
wields  a  powerful  influence  over  the  affairs  of 
Central  America.  His  hand  can  be  seen  in 
every  vexatious  movement  involving  the  insta- 
bility of  governments  at  the  south  of  us,  and 
in  my  opinion  he  and  his  associates  are  a 
menace  to  organized  society.     *     *     * 

Mr.  President,  Senators  may  say,  "Why 
was  not  this  matter  presented  to  the  Senate 
before?"     That  is  a  fair  question.     When  we 


114      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

returned  to  Washington  after  our  labors  we 
found  our  associates  scattered  from  a  long  and 
laborious  session  of  the  Senate.  We  were  un- 
able to  get  our  committee  together.  Unfor- 
tunately, several  of  the  actors  in  this  horrible 
drama  were  killed.  Your  committee  was 
squarely  upon  the  trail  of  Gustavo  Madero  and 
the  vice  president  of  that  republic,  Mr.  Suarez, 
when  their  lives  were  snuffed  out.  The  change 
of  administration  occurred,  and  the  complex- 
ion of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations 
changed;  a  new  situation  arose.  We  had  no 
power  to  go  on.  We  could  not  complete  our 
work.  All  we  could  do  was  to  report  the  prog- 
ress we  had  made;  and  we  laid  upon  the  desk 
of  every  Senator  the  testimony  we  had  taken. 
Talk  about  murders  of  Americans  in  Mex- 
ico! I  have  talked  personally  with  several  of 
the  unfortunate  children  whose  fathers  were 
murdered  on  Mexican  soil.  I  know  of  my  own 
knowledge  of  many  instances  of  this  charac- 
ter. The  condition  of  affairs  in  Mexico  is  most 
deplorable. 


The  reader  will  note  from  the  above  extracts 
from  Senator  Smith's  speech,  that  the  revolu- 
tions in  Mexico  have  undoubtedly  been  insti- 
gated and  financed  by  American  interests  and 
especially  by  American  oil  interests.     It  may 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       115 

have  been  permissible  for  our  administration 
to  assist  an  American  oil  company  to  oust  an 
English  oil  company  in  Mexico,  but  when  it 
became  necessary  in  order  to  accomplish  this, 
to  arm  and  assist  such  men  as  Villa  in  murder- 
ing, robbing  or  ruining  some  thirty  thousand 
American  citizens,  and  to  cause  a  sea  of  blood 
to  flow  in  Mexico  generally,  the  administration 
should  have  halted — the  price  was  too  high. 


OIL  AGAIN. 

By  Major  Cassius  E.  Gillette 

The  fundamental  cause  of  these  awful  condi- 
tions lie  primarily  with  Madero,  a  half-baked 
devotee  of  spiritualism,  who  possibly  seriously 
put  forth  the  old  propaganda  of  "free  land" 
and  a  general  democracy,  with  which  fake 
shibboleth  at  least  a  hundred  rebellions  have 
been  started  in  Mexico  between  the  overthrow 
of  Spain,  in  1821,  and  the  ascendance  of  Diaz, 
in  1876. 

The  testimony  of  Sherburne  G.  Hopkins 
given  before  the  sub-committee  of  the  Senate 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations,  under  oath, 
suggests  a  possible,  and  even  probable,  finan- 
cial backing  of  Madero,  such  as  may  ulti- 
mately prove  that  the  poor  fellow  was  a  mere 
catspaw,  a  pawn  sacrificed  to  the  greed  of  big 
American  oil  interests. 

Mr.  Hopkins  admitted  under  oath  that  he 
was  the  legal  representative  of  Madero  from 
the  start;  that  he  now  represents  the  present 
constitutionalists,  and  that  he  has  been  such 
representative  continuously.  He  also  admit- 
ted that  he  had  been  a  legal  representative 
during  at  least  part  of  the  period  since  the  Ma- 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       117 

dero  outbreak,  of  Henry  Clay  Pierce,  the  head 
of  the  Waters-Pierce  Oil  Company,  presumed 
to  be  one  of  the  tentacles  of  Standard  Oil. 

There  certainly  has  been  an  intense  fight  in 
Mexico  for  years  between  the  Waters-Pierce 
Company  and  the  English  Pearson  Company 
of  Lord  Cowdray.  Yet  Standard  Oil  appears 
to  own,  through  the  Doheny  interest,  more  oil 
and  more  capital  invested  than  all  the  other 
interests  in  Mexico  put  together.  The  ques- 
tion then,  is,  Why  is  Standard  Oil  not  engaged 
in  this  fight  for  the  trade  of  Mexico,  as  are  the 
Piercd  interests  and  the  Pearson  interests? 
The  only  logical  answer  is  that  it  owns  either 
one  or  the  other. 

Mr.  Hopkins  admitted  on  the  stand  that  his 
services  to  Henry  Clay  Pierce  were  for  the 
purpose  of  fighting  Lord  Cowdray  in  Mexico, 
and  the  only  way  Standard  Oil  or  Mr.  Pierce 
could  reach  him  was  to  overthrow  Diaz,  the 
natural  way  to  do  which  would  be  to  finance 
Madero. 

That  they  did  this  financing  is  asserted  by 
sworn  testimony  printed  in  the  same  report. 

Mr.  Converse,  an  intelligent  young  Ameri- 
can who  fought  for  Madero  from  the  start,  and 
was  his  intimate  friend,  when  questioned 
under  oath,  said  that  Madero  had  personally 
told  him  several  times  that  he  got  his  money 


118      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

from  Standard  Oil,  and  that  Standard  Oil 
would  back  him  to  the  "last  ditch/'  the  witness 
remarking  that  his  memory  was  strengthened 
by  Madero's  use  of  the  Americanism,  "the  last 
ditch."  He  swore  that  Madero  told  him  this 
several  times,  as  also  did  Madero's  staunch 
supporter  and  intimate  friend,  Braulio  Her- 
nandez, and  Madero's  governor  of  the  state 
of  Chiluahua,  Abraham  Gonzalez. 

There  is  much  testimony  in  the  printed  vol- 
ume to  the  same  effect,  yet  our  State  Depart- 
ment a  few  weeks  ago  gave  out  that  it  had  no 
information  to  connect  Standard  Oil  with  the 
financing  of  Madero.  This  report  must  cer- 
tainly be  on  file  there. 

On  the  same  day  the  Standard  Oil  officials 
stated  that  the  company  had  not  financed  Ma- 
dero. They  did  not  deny  that  Standard  Oil 
money,  however,  had  been  used  for  the  pur- 
pose. 

There  is  a  pretty  strong  rumor  that  Madero 
got  his  original  funds  for  the  purpose  by  mort- 
gaging his  Guayule  rubber  land  to  the  Conti- 
nental Rubber  Company,  whose  president  is 
John  D.  Rockefeller,  Jr. 

A  somewhat  curious  coincidence  is  that  the 
largest  contributor  to  President  Wilson's  cam- 
paign fund,  and  apparently  one  of  his  closest 
advisers,  is  Cleveland  H.  Dodge,  a  director,  I 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       119 

believe,  in  the  Standard  Oil  National  City 
Bank  and  a  trustee  of  the  Carnegie  Peace 
Foundation,  while  the  officials  of  his  company 
in  Arizona  some  months  ago  were  under  in- 
dictment for  smuggling  arms  and  ammunition 
to  the  Constitutionalists. 

In  any  event,  Mr.  Hopkins  is  admittedly  the 
leader  of  the  Constitutionalist  representatives 
in  Washington,  and  he  is  undoubtedly  one  of 
the  most  skillful  press  agents  in  the  country. 
At  times,  from  what  appears  to  be  his  press 
agent  work,  he  seems  to  have  a  remarkable 
knowledge  of  the  inner  workings  of  our  State 
Department,  and  a  most  remarkable  ability 
to  get  news  telegrams  started  from  out-of-the- 
way  places  in  Mexico,  a  tremendous  percent- 
age of  which  "news"  is  afterward  contradicted. 

For  example.  General  Villa,  as  is  well 
known,  can  neither  read  nor  write,  and  yet  im- 
mediately after  his  recent  murder  of  Benton, 
he  gave  out  a  statement  involving  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  points  of  international  law,  with 
American  and  English  precedents  in  the  mat- 
ter, a  knowledge  of  such  things  entirely  be- 
yond the  ken  not  only  of  Villa,  but  of  arty- 
body  within  one  hundred  miles  of  his  head- 
quarters in  Chihuahua,  at  the  time  he  gave  it 
out.     *     *     * 


JOHN  LIND. 

William  Lemke 

John  Lind,  the  Wilson  spy,  sat  under  the 
protection  of  the  guns  of  a  friendly  nation  at 
Vera  Cruz  and  gave  information  to  the  rebels 
in  arms  against  the  Mexican  government. 
What  w^ould  Lincoln  have  done,  if  during  our 
Civil  v^ar,  England  had  sent  a  spy  of  the  Lind 
type  to  New  York  to  give  military  information 
to  the  South?  He  would  have  had  him  shot, 
and  if  President  Huerta  had  done  his  full  duty 
to  Mexico,  Lind  would  perhaps  now  be  sleep- 
ing beneath  seven  feet  of  earth.  He  was  not 
an  official  of  the  United  States  government, 
but  a  spy,  who,  according  to  correspondence 
made  public  in  the  New  York  Herald,  was  giv- 
ing information  to  the  rebels  and  the  Waters- 
Pierce  Oil  Company.  Whatever  may  have 
been  Mr.  Lind's  reputation,  character  and 
standing  before  he  went  to  Mexico,  there  can 
be  no  question  but  that  his  actions  at  Vera 
Cruz,  his  misrepresentations,  and  the  false 
statements  he  has  made  in  public  since  his  re- 
turn, are  dishonorable.  He  had  better  take 
warning  that  "truth  crushed  to  earth  shall  rise 
again." 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       121 

Senator  Fall  in  a  speech  before  the  United 
States  Senate  said  in  substance:  "The  Presi- 
dent is  not  correctly  informed.  His  personal 
representative,  Mr.  Lind,  came  back  and  wrote 
a  history  of  Mexico  by  copying  it  from  an  en- 
cyclopedia, and  I  am  informed  that  he  told  the 
President  that  if  he  would  send  the  marines  to 
Vera  Cruz  he  could  land  there,  take  the  post  of- 
fice, the  railroad  yards,  and  the  custom  house 
without  firing  a  shot;  that  there  would  be  no 
resistance;  that  there  would  not  be  a  drop  of 
blood  spilled;  and  that,  if  he  held  on,  he  could 
make  Huerta  get  out  of  the  country.  I  know 
that  members  of  Congress  have  come  to  me 
seeking  information  concerning  Mexico  and 
made  the  statement  as  coming  directly  from 
Mr.  Lind,  that  Pancho  Villa  was  now  studying 
metaphysics  and  reading  several  volumes  of 
philosophy;  that  he  really  was  educating  him- 
self and  was  developing  a  great  interest  in 
deep  subjects.  I  asked  if  Mr.  Lind  had  said 
that  he  knew  Villa,  or  had  ever  met  him.  They 
returned  later  and  informed  me  that  Lind  ad- 
mitted that  he  had  never  been  farther  north 
than  Tampico;  that  he  had  never  met  Villa 
in  his  life;  that  he  did  not  know  anything 
about  him,  but  he  did  give  the  name  of  his  in- 
formant, and  that  informant  was  a  representa- 
tive of  one  of  the  greatest  oil  companies  in  the 
world." 


122      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

John  Lind's  closest  adviser  in  Mexico  was 
Mr.  Galbraith,  the  able  manager  of  the  Waters- 
Pierce  Oil  Company.  Mr.  Lind  never  was 
within  a  thousand  miles  of  Villa,  and  yet  he 
had  him  reading  philosophy,  when  it  is  uni- 
versally known  that  he  can  neither  read  nor 
write.  A  number  of  Americans  invited  Lind  to 
visit  his  friend,  the  murderer,  rapist  and  rob- 
ber, Villa,  but  Lind  refused  to  leave  the  protec- 
tion of  the  Mexican  government,  and  preferred 
to  give  his  laudations  at  long  distance. 

Mr.  Lind  also  sang  the  praise  of  Zapata.  He 
stated  repeatedly  that  Zapata  was  the  most 
consistent  patriot  in  Mexico.  It  is  true  that 
Zapata  is  consistent  in  murder,  rape  and  rob- 
bery. Is  that  what  Mr.  Lind  is  pleased  to  call 
consistent  patriotism? 

The  President  sent  John  Lind  to  Mexico  by 
stealth,  without  the  knowledge,  advice  or  con- 
sent of  the  United  States  Senate,  although  our 
constitution  makes  the  Senate,  together  with 
the  President,  responsible  for  the  conduct  of 
our  foreign  affairs.  If  the  President  had  ad- 
vised with  the  Senate,  Mr.  Lind  would  never 
have  been  sent  to  Mexico.  He  was  ignorant 
of  the  Mexican  language,  and  lacked  physical 
and  moral  courage.  Aside  from  his  stop  at 
Tampico  and  his  cautious  trip  to  Mexico  City, 
and  his  hurried  return  to  Vera  Cruz,  and  a  visit 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       123 

to  a  nearby  ranch,  his  entire  radius  of  knowl- 
edge and  observation  in  Mexico  was  confined 
to  the  American  Consulate  and  the  Terminal 
Hotel  at  Vera  Cruz,  which  were  easily  access- 
ible to  the  American  gunboats.  In  some  of  his 
public  utterances  he  boasts  of  having  met  thou- 
sands of  Mexicans.  Mr.  Lind  never  met  a 
thousand  Mexicans  in  his  life.  He  never  ven- 
tured out  or  mingled  with  the  public.  His 
timid  actions  were  the  subject  of  general  con- 
versation and  ridicule  by  Americans  and  other 
foreigners  as  well  as  by  the  Mexicans  in 
Mexico. 

The  public  was  led  to  believe  by  President 
Wilson  and  the  newspapers  that  Mr.  Lind  was 
reluctant  to  go  to  Mexico,  and  that  he  did  so 
only  as  a  public  duty,  and  at  a  great  personal 
sacrifice.  The  truth  is  that  Mr.  Lind  wrote  a 
letter  from  the  city  of  Chicago  to  Secretary 
Bryan,  demanding  that  he  be  appointed  as 
Minister  to  Mexico,  because  of  the  work  he 
had  done  for  the  Democratic  party  in  Minne- 
sota. He  was  appointed  as  a  result  of  that 
letter.  Mr.  Lind  had  no  qualifications  for  this 
mission,  except  that  he  was  friendly  to  the 
Waters-Pierce  Oil  Company,  and  the  large 
lumber  interests  of  St.  Paul,  both  of  which 
have  interests  in  Mexico.  These  unquestion- 
ably would  have  been  very  much  pleased  if  Mr. 


124       CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

Lind  had  succeeded  in  naming  the  President  of 
Mexico.  Lind  did  not  go  to  Mexico  to  learn 
the  true  conditions.  He  went  there  rather 
as  an  attorney  for  interested  parties. 

An  old  resident  of  Mexico  has  this  to  say: 
"A  short  time  before  my  departure  from  Mex- 
ico, I  was  talking  about  the  situation  with  an 
American  Consul,  whom  I  have  known  for 
many  years.  Suddenly  the  consul  suggested 
that  I  go  to  see  Lind.  He  said,  looking  rather 
worried.  'You  know  Villa  and  what  he  is — 
won't  you  tell  Lind.'  I  was  somewhat  sur- 
prised at  the  request,  but  after  thinking  that, 
being  neither  a  Mexican  nor  an  American,  al- 
though educated  in  the  United  States,  Lind 
might  not  consider  me  a  biased  party,  I  agreed. 

"The  consul's  request  had  naturally  led  me 
to  believe  that  Lind  favored  Villa.  I  went  to 
see  him  and  before  long  I  became  convinced 
that  Lind  did  not  wish  to  hear  what  I  had  to 
say  about  Villa  and  moreover  that  he  thought 
the  latter  was  the  only  salvation  for  Mexico. 
I  have  lived  in  Mexico  twenty  years,  as  you 
know.  I  asked  Lind  if  he  had  talked  to  hon- 
est, neutral  Mexicans,  to  representative  men 
who  did  not  take  part  in  the  struggle  and  had 
no  political  ambition.  Lind  answered  that  he 
had.  I  inquired  specifically,  mentioning  more 
than  fifteen  names,  and  in  each  case  he  an- 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       125 

swered,  *No,  not  that  one/  I  soon  perceived 
that  he  had  not  talked  to  the  men  whose  opin- 
ions and  views  were  really  worth  while. 

"Then  I  made  him  an  offer  to  put  at  his  dis- 
posal my  own  house  so  that  he  could  see  the 
men  whose  names  I  had  mentioned,  without 
the  fact  becoming  known  to  any  one  and  I  told 
him  I  would  see  personally  these  men  and 
arrange  for  them  to  meet  him.  'Thank  you/ 
— said  Lind  very  indifferently, — 'sometime, 
perhaps,  you  may  do  that.'  I  left  Lind  con- 
vinced that  his  mind  on  the  subject  had  been 
made  up  before  he  had  gone  to  Mexico  and 
that  no  one  could  change  it  and  I  said  to  my- 
self, Toor  Mexico !'  " 

I  met  Mr.  Lind  at  Vera  Cruz  in  March,  1914, 
and  gave  him  some  information  in  regard  to 
Villa  and  Zapata.  I  presented  to  him  a  case 
where  all  the  women  of  a  village  were  held  for 
ransom  by  the  rebels  with  the  threat  that  if 
their  relatives  failed  to  pay  the  ransom  within 
thirty  days  they  would  be  turned  over  to  the 
soldiers.  Lind's  answer  was  that  the  Federals 
were  just  as  bad.  This  answer  I  knew  was  not 
true.  I  soon  discovered  that  Mr.  Lind  was  not 
interested  in  knowing  the  real  situation.  I  felt 
that  he  was  representing  some  special  inter- 
ests, and  for  that  reason  was  a  sympathizer 
of  the  rebels.    In  place  of  getting  the  truth,  he 


126      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

slandered  and  misrepresented  the  Mexican 
government.  All  the  statements  he  made  con- 
cerning this  government,  I  knew  at  the  time  to 
be  untrue. 

In  one  of  Mr.  Lind's  notes  to  the  Mexican 
government  appears  this  passage:  "The 
President  of  the  United  States  of  America  fur- 
ther authorizes  me  to  say  that  if  the  de  facto 
government  of  Mexico  at  once  acts  favorably 
upon  the  foregoing  suggestions,  then  in  that 
event  the  President  will  express  to  American 
bankers  and  their  associates  assurances  that 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica will  look  with  favor  upon  the  extension  of 
an  immediate  loan  sufficient  in  amount  to  meet 
the  temporary  requirements  of  the  de  facto 
Government  of  Mexico."  That  the  Mexican 
Government  recognized  this  as  in  the  nature 
of  a  bribe  for  them  to  betray  their  country  for 
the  benefit  of  New  York  bankers,  is  plainly 
indicated  by  its  reply:  "Permit  me,  Mr.  Confi- 
dential Agent,  not  to  reply  for  the  time  being 
to  the  significant  offer  in  which  the  Govefn- 
ment  of  the  United  States  of  America  insinu- 
ates that  it  will  recommend  to  American  bank- 
ers the  immediate  extension  of  a  loan  which 
will  permit  us,  among  other  things,  to  cover 
the  innumerable  urgent  expenses  required  by 
the  progressive  pacification  of  the  country;  for 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       127 

in  the  terms  in  which  it  is  couched  it  appears 
more  to  be  an  attractive  antecedent  proposal  to 
the  end  that,  moved  by  petty  interests,  we 
should  renounce  a  right  which  incontrovertibly 
upholds  us  at  a  period  when  the  dignity  of  the 
nation  is  at  stake.  I  believe  that  there  are  not 
loans  enough  to  induce  those  charged  by  the 
law  to  maintain  that  dignity  to  permit  it  to  be 
lessened." 

The  American  bankers,  especially  the 
Waters-Pierce  Oil  Company's  bankers,  would 
have  welcomed  an  opportunity  to  make  a  loan 
to  the  Mexican  government  at  the  rate  of  ex- 
change then  in  force,  with  the  assurance  from 
President  Wilson  that  he  would  back  up  this 
loan  with  the  United  States  army.  This  would 
have  trebled  their  money  over  night.  The  sug- 
gestion of  this  loan  made  by  President  Wilson 
and  Mr.  Lind  after  Mr.  Wilson  had  established 
a  financial  blockade  and  forced  all  the  foreign 
bankers  to  withdraw  their  aid  from  the  Mexi- 
can government,  may  throw  some  light  upon 
our  administration's  whole  Mexican  policy. 
The  President  seems  to  be  thoroughly  familiar 
with  the  power  of  money — banker's  diplomacy 
— financial  starvation. 

In  conclusion  we  may  ask,  how  much  was 
Mr.  Lind  paid  for  his  seven  months'  stay  in 
Mexico?    The  President  and  his  Secretary  of 


128      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

State  have  refused  to  inform  the  public  of  the 
amount.  When  Mr.  Bryan  was  asked  to  ap- 
pear before  the  appropriation  committee  and 
inform  them  of  the  amount,  he  went  on  a  Chau- 
tauqua tour.  A  subordinate  appeared  before 
that  committee  and  informed  them  in  sub- 
stance that  it  would  not  be  compatible  with 
public  interest  to  disclose  the  amount,  as  it 
would  create  a  public  discussion  at  a  time 
when  the  situation  was  delicate.  We  may 
safely  presume  that  Lind  did  not  sacrifice  very 
much,  and  that  the  amount  was  large,  other- 
wise there  would  have  been  no  apprehension 
of  a  public  discussion. 


GOVERNMENT  BY  HEADLINE. 

By  Major  Cassius  E.  Gillette 

So  it  comes  about  that  any  wealthy  individ- 
ual or  corporation  can,  by  skillful  press-agent 
work,  mould  public  opinion  on  almost  any 
subject  without  much  regard  to  the  true  situa- 
tion. This  is  especially  true  if  the  matter  con- 
cerns things  with  which  few  people  are  famil- 
iar. Publicity  for  the  facts  and  arguments  in 
favor  of  any  propaganda  can  be  purchased  as 
readily  as  groceries,  and  the  skillful  publicity 
agent  can  so  distribute  the  news  that  the  un- 
wary headliner,  who  of  necessity  works  in 
haste,  will  give  undue  prominence  to  almost 
any  facts  or  ideas  the  press  agent  wishes. 
When  the  owners  of  the  papers  or  those  who 
manage  its  "policy"  wish  to  develop  public 
opinion  along  a  particular  line  the  possibilities 
are  even  more  remarkable.     *     * 

Editors  write  glibly  of  the  Huerta-Diaz  con- 
spiracy against  Madero.  Curiously  enough 
there  was  a  conspiracy  fully  justified,  to  arrest 
him  by  a  coup  d'etat,  but  neither  Felix  Diaz 
nor  General  Huerta  knew  anything  about  it. 
Both  were  brought  into  the  resulting  fight 
later  and  on  opposite  sides. 


130      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

From  the  time  Madero  started  out  on  his 
career  of  colossal  blunder,  or  colossal  crime, 
he  and  his  clique  have  maintained  in  the  Hibbs 
building,  Washington,  a  junta  of  Mexicans 
and  press-agency  of  great  ability  and  unlim- 
ited imagination,  which  has  wholly  misled 
American  sentiment. 

That  this  misleading  of  public  sentiment  is 
at  the  behest  of  the  Great  American  Oil  mo- 
nopoly is  strongly  indicated.  Whether  the 
President  was  subconsciously  moved  by  this 
probability  to  skip  with  abnormal  alacrity  to 
the  leadership  must  be  left  to  the  reader's  own 
conclusion.  Unpopular,  powerful  interests 
fought  in  public  may  sometimes  be  secretly 
friendly  to  a  public  official  who  aids  them  "un- 
consciously" in  matters  treated  altruistically. 

But  the  news  of  the  day  show  the  unfortu- 
nate plight  in  which  the  Wilson  administra- 
tion has  placed  itself  by  acting  suddenly  on 
misinformation  when  it  refused  recognition  to 
the  Huerta  government.  This  has  driven  the 
administration  into  the  astounding  position  of 
encouraging,  apparently  with  a  view  to  recog- 
nition, the  unspeakable  Villa,  whose  recent 
statements  and  actions  have  satisfied  the 
American  people  that  he,  personally,  foully 
murdered  William  S.  Benton,  a  very  promi- 
nent subject  of  Great  Britain. 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       131 

At  the  present  time  this  headline  principle  is 
more  than  usually  potent  in  national  affairs. 
While  Secretary  Bryan  pushes  his  own  ideas 
with  vigor,  albeit  most  of  those  ideas  seem 
based  on  gallery  play,  President  Wilson 
works  on  a  totally  different  plan.  What  his 
personal  convictions  really  are,  nobody  knows. 
He  has  written  profusely  on  almost  every 
known  subject  and  a  co-ordination  of  what  he 
has  said  at  different  times  puts  him  not  on  two 
sides  of  every  question,  but  generally  on  three 
or  more,  the  net  result  being  a  sort  of  nebulous 
straddle  where  it  generally  takes  an  analytical 
astronomical  observer  to  distinguish  the  neb- 
ula from  the  halo  of  glittering  generalities 
that  surrounds  it.  But  a  critical  examination 
of  his  acts  as  an  executive  and  verbiage  with 
which  he  accompanies  them  will  show  that  he 
never  pushes  his  own  ideas  at  all,  but  waits 
till  he  finds  out  what  he  thinks  will  "go"  and 
then  backs  it  to  the  limit,  throwing  consistency 
to  the  winds  if  necessary  to  land  the  proposi- 
tion on  which  he  has  embarked.  Even  if  he 
mistakes  public  opinion,  he  never  reverses  the 
lever.  These  ideas  explain  all  his  palpably 
inconsistent  actions,  and  no  other  explanation 
will  cover  them. 

A  striking  example  of  almost  unbelievable 
press-agenting,  which  started  the  Presidency 


132      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

marching  with  set  visage  in  the  wrong  di- 
rection, is  the  present  awful  struggle  in 
Mexico. 

From  1821  down  to  Diaz's  time  in  1876,  the 
country  was  always  in  a  state  of  semi-anarchy, 
rebellion,  and  destruction;  any  renegade  man 
of  wealth  could  start  an  uprising  by  simply 
promising  free  land  to  the  peons,  which  would 
give  the  squaws  a  better  chance  to  work.  Hun- 
dreds of  such  rebellions  were  started  on  this 
same  pretext  which  were  never  carried  out. 
The  mentally  unbalanced  Madero  lacked  even 
the  virtue  of  originality  when  he  worked  the 
time-honored  scheme,  and  he  made  only  one 
feeble  attempt  to  carry  it  out.  This  was  made 
through  his  brother  Gustavo,  who  bought  a 
large  hacienda  down  in  Morelos  at  twelve  dol- 
lars an  hectara  and  sold  it  to  his  brother's 
Government  at  thirty-six  dollars  for  issue  to 
the  peons.  The  old  fake  had  worked  because 
in  the  long  period  of  peace  which  Diaz  started 
before  Madero  was  born,  people  had  forgotten 
the  former  history  and  Madero's  revival  of  it 
fired  a  few  minds  beyond  the  peons. 

Madero  made  no  effective  step  to  stop  the 
conflagration  he  had  begun.  Every  bandit 
he  started  on  the  warpath,  and  that  means 
ninety  per  cent  of  his  followers,  stayed  right 
on  in  "rebellion''  against  Madero  and  on  down 
to  the  present  moment. 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       133 

That  General  Huerta  is  an  honest  old  sol- 
dier, and  not  an  assassin,  traitor,  bandit  or 
usurper  in  any  sense  of  those  words,  is  easily- 
demonstrated.  I  have  challenged  all  comers 
to  a  public  debate  on  that  subject  and  I  can 
get  no  takers. 


LIND  FOR  BLOODSHED  AND  SUBTER- 
FUGE. 

The  following  communications  were  trans- 
mitted to  Carranza  by  Sherburne  G.  Hopkins, 
the  attorney  of  the  Waters-Pierce  Oil  Com- 
pany: 

"April  30th,  1914.  *  *  Lind,  in  private 
conversation  with  me  last  nig-ht,  expressed 
approval  course  of  chief  in  consenting  to  hear 
mediation  proposals  of  the  plenipotentiaries  of 
Argentina,  Brazil  and  Chile,  but  as  to  the  ces- 
sation of  hostilities  which  plenipotentiaries 
will  next  propose  as  preliminary  to  further 
negotiations,  Lind  could  not  see  that  revolu- 
tion would  profit  in  any  degree  by  agreeing  to 
such  proposals.  Lind  is  opposed  to  compro- 
mise. In  regard  to  embargo,  Lind  said  Presi- 
dent hesitated  to  raise  embargo  at  this  time 
while  mediation  negotiations  were  pending, 
but  added  that  if,  meanwhile,  pertrechos  (mu- 
nitions of  war)  were  exported  from  the  United 
States  to  Cuba  for  trans-shipment  to  Mata- 
moros,  or  coast  of  Tamaulipas  in  schooners,  he 
would  give  assurance  that  no  obstacle  would 
be  placed  in  the  way  by  Washington.  Lind 
believes  chief  should  immediately  send  person 
of  his  confidence  to  Vera  Cruz."     *     * 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       135 

Later:  "Mr.  Lind  I  consider  a  very  practi- 
cal man,  extremely  prudent  and  always  tact- 
ful. In  conversation  he  is  disposed  to  be  reti- 
cent, yet  what  he  says  goes  directly  to  the 
point.  He  has  made  a  very  careful  study  of 
the  political  situation  in  Mexico  and  I  am  con- 
vinced possesses  a  better  knowledge  of  it  than 
any  other  person  in  the  service  of  this  govern- 
ment. 

"He  certainly  has  the  complete  confidence 
of  President  Wilson,  who  does  not  hesitate  to 
communicate  to  him  his  private  opinions  and 
desires,  but  which  I  think  he  is  very  reticent 
to  impart  to  Mr.  Bryan,  who  is  always  dis- 
posed to  take  into  consideration  his  own  future 
political  career  in  connection  with  every  prob- 
lem or  question  with  which  he  is  confronted. 

"Mr.  Bryan  believes  in  peace  at  any  price 
and  would  be  disposed  to  make  any  conces- 
sion, whatever  the  cost,  to  avoid  war,  believ- 
ing, as  he  does,  that  the  majority  of  the  people 
of  this  country  share  his  opinions,  in  which  he 
is  mistaken.  The  President  entertains  no  such 
ideas,  and  there  is  therefore  a  lack  of  co-ordi- 
nation between  the  policy  of  the  White  House 
and  that  of  the  Department  of  State,  and  it  is 
for  this  reason  that  Mr.  Lind  has  been  selected 
as  the  medium  of  communication  between 
your  confidential  agent  and  the  American  gov- 
ernment.''    *     * 


136       CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

"But  in  this  I  beg  of  you  to  remember  al- 
ways that  there  is  a  person  of  high  position  at 
this  capitol,  who,  to  insure  his  own  personal 
ends,  is  capable  of  trying  to  inspire  discord 
among  those  who  support  you,  in  the  hope  of 
putting  in  your  place  as  supreme  chief  of  the 
revolution  another  person  who  would  be  more 
obedient  to  his  desires.  I  am  pleased  to  learn, 
however,  that  settled  suggestions  relating  to 
this  matter  have  not  provoked  much  interest 
on  the  part  of  the  person  for  whose  ears  they 
were  intended,  and  it  has  been  of  great  gratifi- 
cation to  me  to  learn  of  the  absolute  loyalty  of 
that  person  to  you.  At  the  same  time  I  am 
convinced  that  President  Wilson  on  his  part  is 
a  firm  believer  in  your  capacity  and  in  your 
eventual  triumph." 


LETTERS. 

Hopkins  to  Pierce. 

April  21st,  1914. 
Henry  Clay  Pierce, 

New  York  City. 
Dear  Mr.  Pierce: 

Carranza  continues  to  take  good  advice  and 
remains  discreetly  silent.  I  think  within  a 
few  days  he  will  be  so  used  to  the  situation 
that  there  will  be  no  danger  of  embarrass- 
ment from  that  quarter.  Villa  and  Angeles 
are  with  him  today  in  conference  on  matter  of 
general  policy.  I  have  written  today  to  Car- 
ranza relative  to  oil  matters,  suggesting  that 
steps  be  taken  to  allow  business  in  that  line 
to  be  freely  resumed  under  guarantees  of 
which  you  spoke  last  week. 

From  what  I  know  now  I  entertain  no 
doubt  relative  to  the  triumph  of  the  Constitu- 
tionalists' cause,  provided,  of  course,  that  Car- 
ranza continues  to  stand  pat. 

My  friend  Pani,  who  has  arrived  in  Chihua- 
hua, is  to  be  placed  in  charge  of  the  railways 
of  the  north. 

Faithfully  yours, 

S.  G.  HOPKINS. 


138      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

Pierce  to  Hopkins. 

April  18th,  1914. 
S.  G.  Hopkins, 

Washington,  D.  C. 
Dear  Captain: 

Referring  to  your  letter  of  the  17th  inst. 
with  enclosures :  Mr.  Richards  is  in  the  coun- 
try this  afternoon,  but  on  Monday  he  will  ad- 
vise you  concerning  the  reference  which  you 
have  kindly  sent.  Mr.  Vasconcelos  was  to 
have  seen  me  today,  but  he  telephoned  that  he 
would  come  in  on  Monday.  He  told  me  the 
other  day  he  was  waiting  to  receive  money 
from  Carranza  before  going  to  Canada.  The 
attorney  of  the  Canadian  parties  told  me  yes- 
terday that  Vasconcelos  would  be  wasting  his 
time  to  go  to  Canada,  as  their  representatives 
and  the  parties  to  whom  Vasconcelos  should 
talk  reside  in  New  York,  and  consequently  I 
have  arranged  to  have  the  party  come  to  my 
office  Monday,  and  if  after  talking  with  him  it 
seems  best,  I  will  have  Vasconcelos  meet  him. 
Yours  very  truly, 

H.  C  PIERCE. 

Pierce  to  Hopkins. 

New  York,  May  7th,  1914. 
S.  G.  Hopkins, 

Washington,  D.  C. 
Dear  Captain : 

Referring  to  your  letter  of  May  6th:    Yes- 
terday I  tried  to  impress  upon  Mr.  Vasconce- 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       139 

los  the  necessity  for  prompt  action  on  the  part 
of  his  chief  concerning  railroad  matters. 
*  *  *  It  is  not  necessary  nor  desirable  to 
wait  until  the  capture  of  Saltillo,  San  Luis 
Potosi,  Tampico  and  Aguascalientes  is  ac- 
complished before  undertaking  the  new  organ- 
ization of  the  National  Railways  of  Mexico. 
I  have  not  the  pleasure  of  Mr.  Pani's  acquaint- 
ance, but  assuming  that  he  is  well  fitted  for 
the  work  in  connection  with  Mr.  Vasconcelos, 
who  I  am  sure  understands  the  situation  and 
requirements,  I  should  think  their  appoint- 
ment by  Mr.  Carranza  to  investigate  and  with 
power  to  arrange,  and  their  early  arrival  here 
most  desirable. 

Yours  very  truly, 

H.  C.  PIERCE. 

Hopkins  to  Pierce. 

April  29th,  1914. 
Henry  Clay  Pierce, 

New  York  City. 
Dear  Mr.  Pierce: 

I  confirm  conversation  on  the  telephone  of 
today,  and  beg  to  state  that  reports  to  the 
Navy  Department  indicate  continued  fighting 
in  the  streets  of  Tampico,  but  nothing  indi- 
cates that  there  has  occurred  any  damage  to 
foreign  property.     I  note  that  Mr.  Galbraith 


140      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

and  your  other  employees  at  Galveston  are  to 
return  to  Tampico  on  a  Danish  steamer,  and 
will  wait  there  until  it  is  safe  to  land,  upon  the 
fall  of  which  city  they  will  go  on  to  Vera  Cruz 
and  commence  operations  in  the  refineries  at 
that  place.     *     *     * 

I  asked  you  to  favor  me  with  a  remittance 
several  days  ago,  and  regret  that  I  did  not 
receive  one  this  morning,  I  presume  you  must 
realize  that  my  expenses  in  conducting  the 
work  that  I  have  laid  out  for  me,  amount  to  a 
great  many  times  my  income  and  I  have  not, 
up  to  the  present,  felt  like  calling  on  Carranza 
for  anything,  because  my  prestige  would  be  so 
much  the  greater  in  the  end.  I  have  been 
pressed  with  offer  after  offer  of  retainers  dur- 
ing the  last  six  weeks  from  various  interests  in 
Mexico.  But  up  to  the  present  time  I  have  not 
accepted  one  cent  from  any  of  them,  although 
I  might  have  done  so  with  perfect  propriety. 
My  sole  object  being  to  remain  absolutely  free 
from  entanglements  whatsoever,  that  I  might 
better  represent  you  upon  the  establishment  of 
the  new  regime.  I  do  not  expect  anything 
extravagant,  but  in  laying  the  foundation,  that 
I  certainly  am,  for  the  protection  of  your  in- 
terests, I  think  it  is  only  fair  that  you  should 
respond  with  promptness  when  I  need  funds, 
especially  so  when  I  am  asking  only  what  I 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       141 

require  for  expenses.  I  have  made  such  ex- 
traordinary sacrifices  during  the  past  twelve 
months  that  I  feel  the  necessity  for  protecting 
myself  in  some  degree.  I  had  a  draft  to  meet 
on  the  28th  inst.,  but  managed  to  hold  it  over 
until  tomorrow  awaiting  your  advice.  If  you 
have  not  already  sent  me  a  check,  I  trust  that 
you  will  give  the  matter  your  immediate  con- 
sideration. 

Faithfully  yours, 

S.  G.  HOPKINS. 

Hopkins  to  Pierce. 

May  6th,  1914. 
Henry  Clay  Pierce, 

New  York  City. 
Dear  Mr.  Pierce : 

I  thank  you  for  your  remittance  of  the  2nd 
instant,  of  $500.00,  and  regret  that  you  could 
not,  for  the  moment,  make  it  for  $1,000.00,  the 
amount  needed.  I  trust,  however,  that  within 
the  next  week  or  ten  days  you  will  be  able  to 
let  me  have  the  balance,  since  it  is  very  impor- 
tant for  me  to  have  funds  at  this  particular 

time. 

Faithfully  yours, 

S^G.  HOPKINS. 

Was  oil  responsible  for  President  Wilson's 
Mexican  policy?    Did  oil  get  up  to  the  steps 


142       CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

of  the  White  House — did  it  get  into  the  White 
House?  These  are  the  questions  that  one  nat- 
urally asks  when  he  reads  the  communications 
which  Sherburne  G.  Hopkins  claims  to  have 
had  with  Mr.  Lind — when  he  reads  the  Hop- 
kins-Pierce letters,  taken  from  photographic 
copies,  only  a  few  of  which  I  reproduce  here. 
A  committee  of  the  United  States  Senate 
had  been  appointed  during  the  latter  part  of 
Taft's  administration  to  investigate  the  ques- 
tion: "Whether  any  persons,  associations  or 
corporations  domiciled  in  or  owing  allegiance 
to  the  United  States,  have  heretofore  been,  or 
are  now  engaged  in  fomenting,  inciting,  en- 
couraging or  financing  rebellion,  insurrection 
or  other  flagrant  disorders  in  Mexico."  This 
committee  never  completed  its  work.  It  was 
forced  to  cease  its  investigation  because  of  in- 
sidious influences  under  Wilson's  adminis- 
tration. Senator  Smith,  the  chairman  of  the 
committee,  asked  for  more  money  to  pay  ex- 
penses. His  request  was  refused  by  the  Sen- 
ate, which  President  Wilson  at  that  time  abso- 
lutely domineered.  Senator  Smith  informed 
President  Wilson  and  Secretary  Bryan  of  the 
underlying  causes  of  the  revolution,  and  laid 
before  them  the  sensational  facts  in  his  pos- 
session.    Neither  seemed  to  be  interested. 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       143 

At  the  time  that  Senator  Smith  gave  this 
advice  to  the  President  and  his  Secretary,  they 
were  in  friendly  relations  with  the  rebel  or- 
ganization in  Washington,  D.  C.  The  attor- 
ney for  this  organization  was  Sherburne  G. 
Hopkins.  In  order  to  retain  these  friendly 
relations  with  the  President  and  his  Secre- 
tary the  rebel  organization  employed  Charles 
A.  Douglas,  an  old-time  friend  of  Mr.  Bryan. 
Mr.  Douglas  remained  in  this  employment  un- 
til after  the  overthrow  of  the  Mexican  govern- 
ment, and  held  frequent  conferences  with  the 
Secretary  of  State. 


PRESIDENT  HUERTA. 

William  Lemke 

On  account  of  the  forced  and  fraudulent  pub- 
lic opinion  against  President  Huerta,  I  hesi- 
tate to  say  anything  in  his  favor,  but  I  can 
assure  you  that  the  truth  will  eventually  be 
made  known,  and  that  his  name  will  be  hon- 
ored and  revered  long  after  his  defamers  are 
forgotten  and  rotten  dust — future  history  will 
write  his  name  large.  This  man,  in  spite  of 
all  the  obstacles  that  were  placed  in  his  way 
by  the  Waters-Pierce  Oil  Company  and  the 
Wilson  administration,  did  all  in  his  power  to 
protect  the  honor,  life  and  property  of  all  for- 
eigners, as  well  as  that  of  the  Mexican  people. 
He  did  all  in  his  power  to  exterminate  and  sup- 
press murder,  rape  and  robbery.  In  passing 
judgment  on  this  man,  remember  that  in  gov- 
erning sixteen  million  people,  forty  per  cent  of 
whom  are  pure  Indians,  and  forty  per  cent 
more  of  whom  are  half-breeds,  extraordinary 
measures  are  sometimes  required,  and  especial- 
ly in  war  times.  In  the  saying  of  Lincoln, 
"Necessity  knows  no  law." 

Huerta  was  the  constitutional  President  of 
Mexico.  President  Madero,  and  Vice  Presi- 
dent   Pino    Suarez,    resigned    after   they    had 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       145 

been  arrested  by  order  of  the  Mexican  Con- 
gress. Their  resignations  were  accepted  by 
Congress,  and  Pedro  Lascurain,  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  became  President,  according 
to  article  eighty-three  of  the  Mexican  consti- 
tution. Pedro  Lascurain  then  appointed  Gen- 
eral Huerta  Minister  of  the  Interior,  with  the 
approval  of  Madero's  own  former  cabinet,  and 
then  resigned.  His  resignation  was  accepted 
by  Congress,  and  thereupon,  according  to  the 
Mexican  constitution.  General  Huerta,  Min- 
ister of  the  Interior,  became  the  Constitutional 
President.  All  this  was  done  in  the  interest 
of  humanity  and  to  prevent  further  bloodshed, 
and  in  order  to  put  an  end  to  the  reign  of  terror 
brought  on  by  Madero.  General  Huerta  was 
considered  the  one  man  capable  of  handling  the 
situation. 

President  Huerta  had  no  more  to  do  with 
the  shooting  of  Madero  than  did  President 
Wilson.  Madero  was  shot,  as  is  generally  sup- 
posed, through  the  influence  of  a  father,  whose 
son  Madero  had  murdered.  The  mistake  that 
Huerta  made  was  that  he  did  not  have  Madero 
publicly  executed  immediately  after  he  was 
arrested.  Our  administration's  press  has  lost 
no  opportunity  to  parade  in  public  the  black 
veiled  figure  of  Mrs.  Madero  for  political  ef- 
fect.   No  sympathy  ever  existed  among  the  in- 


146      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

telligent  Mexicans  for  the  Maderos.  They  re- 
membered the  well  filled  treasury  and  the 
splendid  credit  of  their  country  under  Diaz, 
which  departed  with  the  Maderos.  They 
mourned  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  lives 
that  have  been  lost  during  the  last  three  years 
of  strife,  inaugurated  by  the  powerful  Madero 
family.  They  remembered  the  wanton 
slaughter  of  the  little  orphan  children  in  front 
of  the  National  Cathedral.  They  recalled  the 
two  hundred  military  cadets,  who  were  shot 
down  without  a  trial,  by  orders  of  Madero  and 
his  brother,  Gustavo,  in  the  National  Palace. 
But  let  us  not  enumerate  more  of  the  awful 
crimes  of  Madero.  In  the  words  of  an  Amer- 
ican consul,  "Let  us  be  merciful  to  the  dead, 
and  say  he  was  insane." 

President  Wilson  has  been  lauded  for  keep- 
ing us  out  of  war.  Nothing  is  further  from 
the  truth.  Every  act  of  his  has  brought  us 
closer  to  war,  and  the  end  is  not  yet.  Let  us 
be  fair.  We  are  not  now  at  war  with  Mexico, 
because  General  Huerta  realized  that  the 
struggle  would  be  useless,  and  did  not  resist 
when  Wilson  landed  the  marines  at  Vera  Cruz. 
To  Huerta,  not  to  Wilson,  belongs  the  credit. 
Huerta  does  not  profess  to  be  a  puritan,  but  he 
is  honest  and  does  not  parade  in  public  for 
something  that  he  is  not.    He  has  been  called 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       147 

a  usurper  by  our  President,  and  has  been 
maligned  and  defamed  by  the  subsidized  oil 
press,  but  that  is  to  his  credit.  Sometimes  an 
honest  man  is  known  by  the  enemies  he  has 
made. 


PRESIDENT  DIAZ'S  RESIGNATION. 

Sir:  The  Mexican  people,  who  generously 
covered  me  with  honors,  who  proclaimed  me 
as  their  leader  during  the  international  war, 
who  patriotically  assisted  me  in  all  works  un- 
dertaken to  develop  the  industry  and  the  com- 
merce of  the  republic,  establish  its  credit,  gain 
for  it  the  respect  of  the  world  and  obtain  for 
it  an  honorable  position  in  the  concert  of  na- 
tions; that  same  people,  sir,  has  revolted  in 
armed  military  bands,  stating  that  my  pres- 
ence in  the  exercise  of  the  supreme  executive 
power  is  the  cause  of  this  insurrection. 

I  do  not  know  of  any  fact  imputable  to  me 
which  could  have  caused  this  social  phenom- 
enon, but  permitting,  though  not  admitting, 
that  I  may  be  unwittingly  culpable,  such  a  pos- 
sibility makes  me  the  least  able  to  reason  out 
and  decide  my  own  culpability.  Therefore, 
respecting  as  I  have  always  respected  the  will 
of  the  people,  and  in  accordance  with  Article 
82  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  I  come  before 
the  supreme  representatives  of  the  nation  in 
order  to  resign  unreservedly  the  office  of  Con- 
stitutional President  of  the  Republic,  with 
which  the  national  vote  honored  me,  which  I 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       149 

do  with  all  the  more  reason  since  in  order  to 
continue  in  office  it  would  be  necessary  to  shed 
Mexican  blood,  endangering  the  credit  of  the 
country,  dissipating  its  wealth,  exhausting  its 
resources,  and  exposing  its  policy  to  interna- 
tional complications. 

I  hope,  gentlemen,  that  when  the  passions 
which  are  inherent  to  all  revolutions  have  been 
calmed,  a  more  conscientious  and  justified 
study  will  bring  out  in  the  national  mind  a  cor- 
rect acknowledgment,  which  will  allow  me  to 
die,  carrying  engraved  in  my  soul  a  just  im- 
pression of  the  estimation  of  my  life,  which 
throughout  I  have  devoted  and  will  devote  to 
my  countrymen. 

With  all  respect, 

PORFIRIO  DIAZ. 


ADDRESS  BEFORE  MEXICAN 
CONGRESS. 

By  President  Huerta. 

I  am  not  going  to  call  you  deputies  and  sena- 
tors any  more,  but  simply  fellow  citizens, 
Mexicans;  we  are  face  to  face  with  a  mission 
entrusted  to  us,  with  the  eyes  of  the  nation, 
nay  of  all  humanity,  upon  us,  and — let  us  admit 
it  as  well  now  as  later — we  are  in  the  presence 
of  God. 

I  am  a  Liberal,  but  even  so  I  am  deeply  re- 
ligious, and  I  call  upon  God  to  give  us  strength 
in  the  present  situation.  Circumstances  have 
placed  me  at  the  helm,  but  I  assure  you  that  it 
will  be  the  proudest  moment  of  my  life  when  I 
shall  turn  that  responsibility  over  to  the  man 
elected  by  the  Mexican  people,  and  then  take 
up  the  sword  again  as  a  good  soldier  for  the 
honor  of  my  country. 

We  are  all  sons  of  the  people,  sons  of  a  great 
people,  and  one  that  may  yet  be  greater  in  the 
future.  As  the  American  statesman,  Roose- 
velt, has  said,  this  is  not  a  Caucasian  race.  I 
am  not  a  Caucasian,  I  am  an  Indian;  but  Roose- 
velt was  right  when  he  said  that  this  nation  has 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       151 

produced  great  men  and  would  some  day  be 
one  of  the  greatest  nations  in  the  world.  My 
boys,  I  call  on  you  to  put  aside  all  personal  am- 
bitions and  grievances  to  work  for  the  pacifica- 
tion of  the  country,  and  amid  the  dangers  be- 
setting the  ship  of  state  I  swear  to  you  on  my 
honor  as  a  man  and  soldier  that  there  is  to  be 
peace  in  this  land  even  if  bought  at  the  cost  of 
my  life. 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN. 

William  Lemke 

The  rise  and  fall  of  William  Jennings  Bryan 
is  unique  in  American  history.  A  generation 
ago,  Mr.  Bryan  conceived  a  cause — "a  cause 
as  holy  as  the  cause  of  liberty — the  cause  of 
humanity."  He  lost  himself  in  this  cause,  and 
thrice  narrowly  escaped  being  President.  "The 
humblest  citizen  in  all  the  land  when  clad  in 
armour  of  a  righteous  cause  is  stronger  than 
all  the  hosts  of  error" — than  all  the  hosts  of 
the  Waters-Pierce  Oil  Company  with  their 
tainted  and  entrenched  wealth  and  subsidized 
press.  Unfortunately  for  Mr.  Bryan,  unfortu- 
nately for  the  American  people,  and  unfortu- 
nately for  that  cause — the  cause  of  humanity, 
Mr.  Bryan  became  Secretary  of  State  under 
the  Wilson  Administration.  Where,  sur- 
rounded by  entrenched  wealth  and  insidious 
influences  he  attempted  to  appropriate  that 
cause — the  cause  of  humanity — for  his  own 
political  aggrandizement  and  personal  gain, 
and  Bryan's  star  began  to  descend. 

What  a  miserable  figure  he  has  been  as  Sec- 
retary of  State.  He  not  only  brought  dishonor 
to  himself  and  disgrace  to  his  party,  but 
shamed  the  nation  by  his  amateurish  and  boor- 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       153 

ish  performance.  Bryan,  the  commoner,  no 
longer  was  able  to  live  on  twelve  thousand  a 
year.  He  forgot  that  he  was  but  the  servant  of 
the  people,  left  his  post  of  duty,  and  while 
American  men  were  being  murdered,  and 
American  women  and  children  ravished  in 
Mexico,  he  peddled  the  prestige  of  the  high 
office  of  Secretary  of  State  about  on  the 
Chautauqua  platform  at  so  much  per  day.  As 
Champ  Clark,  an  admirer  of  the  former,  but 
not  of  the  latter  day  Bryan,  has  justly  said: 
"It  seems  to  me  to  be  dishonest  for  a  person 
to  receive  money  from  the  government  for  per- 
forming his  official  duties,  and  then  leave  his 
post  of  duty  to  make  money  on  the  lecture 
platform." 

To  cover  up  the  administration's  Mexican 
blunders,  William  Jennings  Bryan  deliberately, 
for  political  purposes,  concealed  the  blood  of 
the  five  hundred  American  citizens  who  were 
murdered  and  tortured  to  death  by  Villa  and 
his  kind — men,  women  and  children,  who  had 
gone  to  Mexico  to  make  their  homes  there 
upon  the  advice  that  Mr.  Bryan  publicly  gave 
just  a  few  short  years  ago.  The  concealing  of 
the  murder  of  these  our  fellow  men,  can  never 
be  justified.  It  is  the  first  time  in  the  history 
of  nations  that  those  in  charge  of  a  govern- 
ment— charged  with  the  sacred  duty  of  pro- 


154      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

tecting  its  subjects,  deliberately  concealed  the 
murder  of  its  people  in  a  foreign  land,  thus 
compounding  an  international  felony. 

Forced  to  defend  his  position,  Mr.  Bryan 
raised  his  voice  and  joined  the  chorus  of  the 
Waters-Pierce  Oil  Company  and  its  subsid- 
ized press,  and  shouted  exploiters  into  the  face 
of  the  unhappy  Americans,  who  were  unfor- 
tunate enough  to  have  taken  his  advice  to  go 
into  Mexico  and  find  a  home.  Oh,  what  a 
change  of  the  mighty  Bryan,  what  a  disap- 
pointment to  the  cause  of  humanity!  ''The 
hardy  pioneers,  who  'had'  braved  all  the  dan- 
gers of  the  wilderness,  who  'had'  made  the 
desert  to  blossom  as  the  rose — the  pioneers 
away  'down  there  in  Mexico,'  who  reared  their 
children  near  to  nature's  heart,  where  they 
'could'  mingle  their  voices  with  the  voices  of 
the  birds, — 'down'  there  where  they  'had' 
erected  schoolhouses  for  the  education  of  their 
young,  churches  where  they  praised  their 
creator,  cemeteries  where  rest  the  ashes  of 
their  dead" — murdered  with  the  arms  and  am- 
munition furnished  by  the  Wilson  administra- 
tion to  Villa  and  his  followers.  "These  people 
we  say  are  as  deserving  of  the  consideration 
of  our  'nation'  as  any  people  in  this  country. 
It  is  for  these  that  we  speak.  We  do  not  come 
as  aggressors.     Our  war  is  not  a  war  of  con- 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       155 

quest;  we  are  fighting  in  defense  of  our  homes, 
our  families  and  posterity.  We  have  pe- 
titioned, and  our  petitions  have  been  scorned; 
we  have  entreated,  and  our  entreaties  have 
been  disregarded;  we  have  begged,  and  *y^^> 
Mr.  Bryan*  have  mocked  when  our  calamity 
came.  We  beg  no  longer;  we  entreat  no  more; 
we  petition  no  more.  We  defy  *you.'  "  We, 
the  seventy-five  thousand  Americans,  who 
have  been  wronged  by  you,  will  expose  you. 
We  will  drag  this  whole  Mexican  scandal  into 
the  light  of  day. 

Former  President  Cleveland  said:  "The  ad- 
ministration should  act  behind  glass  doors." 
Following  this  suggestion,  Mr.  Bryan  repeat- 
edly demanded  that  President  Taft  make  pub- 
lic the  recommendations  he  had  received  to 
appoint  Mr.  White  Chief  Justice.  Recently 
two  thousand  Americans  in  Mexico  City  sent 
a  protest  to  Secretary  Bryan,  demanding  that 
he  make  it  public.  Bryan  refused,  stating 
"that  the  matter  was  of  such  a  character  that 
he  did  not  think  the  Department  of  State  could 
take  the  responsibility  of  giving  it  publicity." 
Can  Mr.  Bryan  answer  why  he  felt  it  his  duty 
to  keep  from  the  American  public  the  fact  that 
their  citizens  were  being  murdered  in  Mexico? 
The  only  reason  he  can  give  is  that  he  con- 
sidered the  political  welfare  of  President  Wil- 


156      CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO 

son  and  himself  of  greater  moment  than  the 
lives  of  thousands  of  our  citizens.  He  and  the 
President  actually  rendered  the  nation  instru- 
mental in  ruining  and  destroying  their  fellow 
men.  The  author  of  "The  Prince  of  Peace" 
feared  the  righteous  wrath  and  the  just  indig- 
nation of  the  American  people  if  they  ever  ob- 
tained the  facts. 

Under  fire,  Mr.  Bryan  resigned  and  deserted 
his  chief,  after  he  had  helped  him  to  bring  this 
nation  to  the  very  verge  of  war.  No  one  ad- 
mires the  particular  kind  of  courage  it  takes 
to  run  rather  than  to  stand  by  your  guns,  yet 
Mr.  Bryan's  resignation  meets  with  universal 
approval.  The  public  long  ago  realized  that  as 
Secretary  of  State  he  was  a  detriment  to  the 
nation. 

As  Macaulay  said  of  King  Charles  the  First, 
so  the  friends  of  Mr.  Bryan,  like  the  friends  of 
other  wrongdoers  against  whom  overwhelm- 
ing evidence  is  produced,  decline  all  contro- 
versy about  the  facts,  and  content  themselves 
with  calling  testimony  to  character.  He  has 
so  many  private  virtues.  He  is  a  believer  in 
peace  at  any  price.  Ample  apologies  for  con- 
cealing the  persecution  and  murder  of  Amer- 
ican citizens  in  Mexico. 

The  man  who  stands  idly  by  and  sees  his 
neighbor  murdered  and  mutilated  and  shouts 


CRIMES  AGAINST  MEXICO       157 

peace  is  in  a  moral  sense  an  accomplice  of  the 
crime.  There  is  no  peace  while  those  of  our 
own  flesh  and  blood  are  being  destroyed.  We 
have  had  enough  of  this  ignorance.  If  Mr. 
Bryan  had  lived  in  1776,  he  would  have  as- 
sailed Patrick  Henry  for  his  speech  on  the 
"Resistance  to  Oppression."  He  would  have 
been  willing,  for  the  sake  of  harmony,  to  sub- 
mit to  taxation  without  representation.  He 
would  have  insisted  upon  peace  at  any  price. 
He  would  have  been  a  Tory.  He  lacks  the 
courage  to  stand  for  the  eternal  right,  and  to 
fight  for  it  if  necessary.  Let  us  answer  him 
by  saying:  "You  shall  not  press  down  upon 
the  brow  of  'American  women  and  children' 
this  crown  of  'disgrace.'  You  shall  not  crucify 
'American  women  and  children  upon  the  Villa 
cross  of  shame.'  " 


